


Time

by chlochlo



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fluff and Angst, Please read the author's notes!, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23892496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlochlo/pseuds/chlochlo
Summary: Like most people her age, Katie barely remembers her parents. It was one of those new normals that arose after the 2018 pandemic, like wearing a mask at all times, knowing how to bake bread from scratch, and volunteering to embark on a mission to re-write history.It's never bothered her that she never knew her parents, and she would never put her personal desires ahead of the survival of humanity, but when she winds up living in the same town as them, working at the coffee shop that they frequent, andseeingthem alive and well, she can't help but selfishly want to get to know them, therealTessa Virtue and Scott Moir -- not the version they painted on the ice for the world to admire all those years ago.She knows it's wrong, that she's breaking entire books of rules she swore to adhere to. But it's not like she's completely abandoning her mission. All she's going to do is clean some skates, earn some very much needed money, and maybe,maybetalk to her parents once or twice. What could possibly go wrong?(A re-worked version ofThe Beginning of The End: The End of Space and Time)
Relationships: Kaetlyn Osmond & Scott Moir, Kaetlyn Osmond & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 75
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> First of all, thank you for clicking on this story. Before you continue on, I'd appreciate it if you could read the possibly lengthy note so that you aren't caught off-guard while reading.
> 
> Although the plot of this story is in many ways very different from the original story I uploaded two (two!) years ago, this is essentially a re-worked version of _The Beginning of The End: The End of Space and Time_. I've been playing around with this idea for what feels like _ages_ now. The basic outline was done last autumn. The first chapter was in progress since around then as well. At the time, the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic had not started yet, and so adding a SARS-related infectious disease wasn't as big of a deal. However, things have now changed.
> 
> **  
> _Please be warned that in this story, there will be mentions of a coronavirus pandemic._  
>  **
> 
> I won't go into incredible detail of how the bleak future was (I'll maybe put one or two flashbacks, but that will be about it, and I will definitely put warnings in the author's notes if I do), but please know that a fictional pandemic and its equally fictional aftermath does play a large role in the main character's motivation throughout the story. If this makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, please refrain from reading. 
> 
> Also, if you were part of the lovely group of readers that were with me during the original version of the story, you may remember that I had a separate work titled _Donut Holes_ where I posted deleted scenes. I decided to do something similar here, but instead of posting it as a separate work, I've included a short snippet at the end of the chapter. The hope is that it'll give you an insight into the world Katie came from. If you choose not to read it, it won't impact your understanding of the story in any way.
> 
> I hope you decide to read on, but I completely understand if you choose not to as well. 
> 
> I hope you and your family are staying safe.

Whenever she gets nervous, Katie fiddles with her parents’ wedding rings. She has worn it around her neck for as long as she remembers, safely tucked underneath her clothes at all times. But on days like today, Katie finds herself pulling it out and caressing the smooth silver of her dad’s ring and the rough diamonds of her mom’s.  
Static noise pierces her ears, and Katie winces. Slipping her necklace back underneath her shirt, she lowers the volume a notch and straightens up as she awaits Dr. Chen’s face to take over the pitch-black screen. 

Despite it being three in the morning, it takes a while for the conference call to come through properly, but once it does, she is relieved to find that neither the audio nor the screen is lagging. Dr. Chen appears to be relieved as well, though Katie can’t really tell -- most of his face is covered by the black mask he is wearing. 

“I’m sorry for requesting a meeting at such short notice,” he says. 

“No worries. It isn’t as though I have anywhere else to be.” It’s more like she has nowhere other than her home that she can be at under current circumstances, but she doesn’t state the bleak obvious. “You said you had something you wanted to discuss. I presume it’s about NEEMO?” 

“Actually, it’s about Kairos.”

“Kairos?”

Kairos was a NASA program with an ambitious goal: to explore the feasibility of time travel. Up until the early-2010’s, it was treated like a passion project of sorts; something physicists pondered over because they had the brains to do so. The name Kairos was attached to it after the U.S. government gave NASA the thumbs up and an exorbitant amount of money to devise a vehicle that could traverse through time. Though it was a controversial decision, it didn’t take long for other countries to lend a helping hand, either financially or by sending their best and brightest engineers. A prototype of the vehicle was created within a few years, and twenty candidates began undergoing training in preparation for its launch. Katie was one of them.

“I thought it was scrapped,” she says. Well, not exactly scrapped, she supposes. Although much of the team were reassigned to other missions, a handful of them were still tinkering with the vehicle and making plans for the inevitable.

“It’s happened too many times,” Charlie, one of the head engineers and her childhood friend, had told her just last month. “They always think the worst is over, that everything’s going to get better from here on out, and then…” He raised his hand to run it through his hair but stopped himself. “They want to give the future a chance, but they also know they need a solid Plan B at this point. If they asked us to launch it tomorrow, we could.”

Dr. Chen more or less confirms Charlie’s words. “Much of the funding was redirected to other projects, yes, but Kairos was never completely abandoned. Of course, it was never going to be the first solution we run to, but I’m afraid we’re out of options now.”

It feels like someone is gripping her by the throat. “Out of options. But the W.H.O. said—”

“The W.H.O. is trying to keep people from panicking, because the last thing we need is for people to do unto each other what Mother Nature intends to do unto us. But the reality is that we are out of options. There is no hope of making a vaccine; there is lack of drinkable water; there are entire American states with no doctors left.”

“And you think we might be able to prevent all of this from happening?”

“I think that altering the past will wind up in one of two ways: its effects will either ripple out and change the course of history forever or it’ll simply delay the inevitable. Some of my colleagues believe a loop will be created – that is, that it is our action of changing the past that will result in this future. But I’m not that pessimistic, even after all this time.”

 _A literal repeat of history._ “Sounds terrifying,” she admits. “But if we’re already in the worst-case scenario, I suppose we’ve got nothing to lose.”

The only sign that Dr. Chen approves of her statement are the wrinkles that form in the corners of his eyes. “I’m glad you think so, Ms. Virtue-Moir,” he says, “because we were hoping you’d still be willing to go.”

*

By late that afternoon, Katie is wheeling her suitcase out her apartment. Dr. Chen hadn’t requested that she give a definite answer right then and there over the video call but did ask that she fly out to Washington D.C. if there was even a slight chance that she might be interested in the mission. There was no hesitation in Katie’s answer.

There is a total of four people on her plane, two being the pilot and co-pilot and the other the only flight attendant. Before taking off, the flight attendant comes and double-checks Katie’s permission slip. 

“My mom worked there,” the flight attendant says, pointing at the NASA insignia. “She was part of the Proxima project.”

“I’m sorry,” Katie says. No one aboard that spacecraft survived, and the cause of death was unknown.

“I swear there was a ghost aboard that spacecraft,” Charlie says. He is the one who came to collect her from the airport, and his blatant disregard for the speed limit has them approaching NASA Headquarters at record speed. “One day, everyone aboard was fine, then three days later, they were all dead. There were no distress calls either. Creepy, huh?”

“Aren’t they going to send someone to retrieve the bodies?” 

Charlie’s head snaps sideways. “Hell no. Whatever killed those people is _not_ something we want to mess with.” 

Charlie’s words irritate her because she knows he’s right. “So we’re going to just leave them out there, floating in space like some piece of space junk.” She glares at him when a particularly sharp turn has her slamming against her seatbelt. “What are they going to do about Proxima II then?” 

“It’s on hold for now. The physicists aren’t sure how Kairos will affect events that take place outside of Earth. The people aboard the ISS are going to be coming back over the next few days. I think the first spacecraft left today.”

Katie’s stomach churns. She’d signed up for Kairos because she believed in its mission, of course, but never in a million years did she think it was going to be favored over moving the entire human population onto a new planet. Proxima, as the Chancellor of Germany phrased it, “could be a non-zero-sum game.” Kairos, on the other hand, could not.

A knock on the glass startles Katie out of her thoughts. They’ve reached Headquarters already, she realizes. Charlie opens the door on her behalf.

“Don’t zone out yet,” he says. “We’ve got to save the world first.”

“We’re trying to save _humanity_ , Charlie. Those two are _not_ the same.”

*

Katie is doused with disinfectants before she is escorted up to the conference room. A team of five specialists are there waiting for her. They are joined by several more people via video call a few minutes later, including a heavily pixelated Prime Minister of Canada.

“Right then,” Dr. Isabella Rodríguez says. “Shall we begin?” 

The meeting kicks off by asking for confirmation that all countries were on board with Kairos moving forward. From Katie’s understanding, the world leaders have already held several meetings where they argued and debated for hours prior to this conference, after which the final conclusion was that this was a risk that needed to be taken. This portion of the meeting should’ve been over in five minutes. 

Instead, the President of the United States says, “Look, look. I think this mission is great and all, but we also need to be fair. We can’t have countries that paid billions of dollars getting the same benefits as those that paid zero.”

Katie doesn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes as the Prime Minister of Japan suggests letting the G7 decide the key events that need intervention. Of course the politicians were going to simply forget about the years of research the scientists and historians put into this project. Sometimes, she thinks it’s the stupidity of their leaders that resulted in the downfall of humanity – not animals or viruses or whatever else the politicians decided they wanted to put the blame on.

“Katie?”

“Sorry, I was distracted. What did you say?”

“I said, what do you think about our lovely world leaders up there?”

“I prefer not to.”

Dr. Rodríguez laughs. “You know, I’ve tried that: ignoring the government, seeing if they’d just vanish into thin air. Hasn’t worked yet, as you can see.”

“They’re not all bad.”

“Sure, but the ones that are are way too loud.” 

“Ms. Virtue-Moir!” the President of the Philippines barks. “You should think about the history – not deliver money to the White House.”

“Oh, you mean my focus should be on saving the lives of billions of people instead of worrying about the financial loss of the rich? I wonder why I never thought of that.”

Dr. Rodríguez snorts into her coffee mug. 

“And Mrs. Rodríguez, you should look more closely at the virus strain. You can trace its ancestors that way.”

“I love how he’s giving a virology lecture to a woman who’s got a PhD in the field,” Charlie mumbles. He yawns and slumps into his chair. “Wake me up when they say something hilariously idiotic.”

“I was going to ask you to do the same for me.”

*

Like most people her age, Katie barely remembers her parents. However, unlike most people her age, Katie grew up with plenty of photos and videos of her parents that she could watch whenever she wanted to.

It was when Katie was five that her Aunt Jordan showed her a video of her parents skating for the first time. She doesn’t remember the occasion; she certainly didn’t ask to see it. However, she does remember her aunt placing a stack of chocolate chip cookies in front of her, her chubby fingers picking one up, and her promptly forgetting all about the cookie in her hand the instant her aunt pressed play. 

Her aunt sat across the table from her, sipping on her coffee while Katie gasped and clapped and cheered for these younger versions of her parents. They looked like they were floating, she thought. It was magical; Katie had been skating before, but she could _never_ make it look that effortless. If she had to skate with a boy, she’d probably hurt him and then hurt herself. 

“They’re good, huh?” Aunt Jordan said.

Katie nodded enthusiastically, finally remembering the cookie in her hand and taking a bite out of it. 

“This was back in 2017. At the World Championships in Helsinki.”

“Where’s that?” Katie asked.

Aunt Jordan brought out her globe. “It’s in Finland. Right… here.”

Katie spun the globe to find Canada. “That’s so far away!”

“It is. Skating took your mom and dad all over the world. They even went to Japan!”

Katie gasped. “Wow… where’d they go next?”

“Nowhere. They came back home and stayed here. This was their last competition. Their last skate.”

Katie furrowed her eyebrows. “Why?” 

Aunt Jordan’s smile faltered. “They just decided that it was time for them to stop.”

“But why?” 

The slamming of the door snaps Katie out of her thoughts. Her eyes focus on the layers of ovals she’d drawn around the words that transported her back to her childhood: _2017 Helsinki gas attack_.

A few seconds later, a cup of coffee lands in front of her.

“Sorry I’m late,” Dr. Rodríguez says. “I swear the President is going to drive me insane one day.”

“You mean he hasn’t already?” Katie removes her mask and takes a cautious sip. “Apology accepted. What drug did you put in this thing?”

“Cocoa. Learned how to make it during my stay on the International Space Station. The coffee there tastes awful. How have the past couple of days been? Is training going well?”

Upon the conclusion of the incredibly useless meeting that had taken place the day she arrived, Katie was given the rest of the day off to rest. A training schedule was taped onto her door by the next morning. Most of the physical training wasn’t difficult for her; the project she’d been on before returning to Kairos was very demanding. Plus, she’d been an athlete her entire life. It was the academic preparation such as lessons in history and chemistry that were going to be the death of her.

“Do I really need to know how to fix a drone?” Katie says. “I think Charlie will murder me before the mission date at this rate.” She tries her hardest not to make it sound whiny. From Dr. Rodríguez’s amused look, it’s clear that she has failed.

“It’ll come in handy.” Dr. Rodríguez glances over at the file Katie was reading over while she was waiting. “How much of that have you read?”

“Not much. Just the schedule.” 

“Good.” Dr. Rodríguez grabs an assortment of highlighters and pens and sits down next to Katie. “As you know, it’s impossible to know exactly where things went wrong in history. But over the past couple of years, we’ve narrowed it down to a couple of key events.”

“They’re all in the late-2010’s. Why not go back earlier?”

“Too risky. The further back we go, the less control we have of how the mission’s effects will ripple out to present time. To be honest with you, it’d be best if we could narrow it down to just one, but that poses too big a risk as well. With our current machine, you can only decide the year you want to travel back to. You might miss your chance completely.”

‘Decide’ is a generous term to describe how the vehicle operates. For some reason, the engineers had designed it in such a way that one had to literally swipe through a holographic timeline of sorts until he reached his final destination. It sounds simple, but the last time Katie was in the training simulator, she’d swiped with too much force and ended up in 1996 instead of 2001.

“What’s the year I should aim for then?” Katie asks. 

“Well…” Dr. Rodríguez inspects the list. She pulls out her highlighter and draws a neon star next to 2018 coronavirus pandemic. “If you can influence only one event, this has got to be the one.”

Katie knows what happened there well. In January 2018, cases of severe pneumonia started popping up in regions of Russia, Kazakhstan, Finland, and China. The World Health Organization was alerted at the beginning of February, but by then, it was too late. Thousands of people were on the move, traveling back from Christmas break, driving home for Chinese New Year, and, of course, flying to Korea for the Winter Olympics. 

“It was a nightmare,” Dr. Rodríguez says. “They couldn’t figure out who the index case was because cases arose in four countries at the same time. But what was catastrophic was that it happened so close to the Olympics. Around 100 countries were represented there. They never stood a chance.”

“But if they couldn’t figure out where it started, how is anyone supposed to prevent it from happening?”

“They gave up on finding patient zero, but they didn’t stop studying the virus. At the peak of the pandemic, they concluded that the virus originated from China. The coronavirus appeared to be related to the SARS coronavirus, and a strain similar to the one that triggered the pandemic was found in bats that reside in the Yunnan province. Plus, one of the earliest reported cases was a Chinese man. But the dates don’t add up. Yunnan province is in the southwest region of China. If that’s where the outbreak started, the first cases should’ve been in China, and maybe Vietnam, Laos or Myanmar. Instead, the initial patients were up here, near the Russian border. Also, the man had been in Russia for the past year conducting research before he returned home for the holidays. Taking into account the incubation period, there is no way he was infected in China.”

Katie considers this for a moment. “I still don’t see how it could be stopped. Slowed down, maybe, if the Olympics could be cancelled somehow, but stopped? How are we supposed to find the one bat that’s responsible?”

“One of the benefits of looking back on the pandemic 20 years later is that you’ve got the luxury of being able to look at the big picture.” Dr. Rodríguez flips through the file till she finds a map. “In December 2017, there was an explosion here, at the Vector Institute. It stored dangerous strains of smallpox, anthrax, Ebola, and other viruses. Including coronavirus. SARS, MERS—”

“Fantastic.” 

“The Russians swore nothing containing harmful substances were broken. There was no reason to suspect that they were lying.”

“But you think they were?”

"I think that an explosion that blew out all the windows in the building was probably strong enough to break a few test tubes and set a couple of experimental animals loose.”

*

The weeks leading up to the launch date fly by in a flurry of intensive training sessions and briefings. By the night before she is due to travel back to the 2010’s, Katie has spent two months operating the simulator (a year, if the amount of time she trained before the project was “scrapped” is included) and is therefore feeling a lot more confident in her ability to land at around the correct year. She still lies wide awake that night, though, staring up at the ceiling one moment and turning to face the door the next.

Eventually, after just a few hours of restless sleep, Katie gives up. It’s four; her alarm is going to ring soon anyways. She spends the time she has left going through her suitcase again. She makes sure she has packed everything her team had given her: books, passport and identification card, various tech equipment, some clothes, a bit of cash, and a sealed envelope containing a credit card. 

“Remember,” Charlie tells Katie as he is making sure she is strapped in to her seat properly, “don’t use it unless you end up having to crash in the past for longer than you expected. And make sure you introduce yourself to the man before using his card. We don’t want to give him a heart attack.”

“Right. Because showing up on his front porch and saying, ‘Hi! I’m from 2038. I need to stay here for a while, but I’m broke. Can I use your credit card?’ won’t shock him at all.” 

Charlie rolls his eyes. “I wrote down his address for you. It’s in the envelope.” 

“Thank you.”

“Are you sure about this? It’s not exactly a round trip.”

“Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Virtue-Moir and Mr. White,” the President’s voice screeches from the iPad someone is holding up, “but can we get on with this thing? I don’t have all day.”

“If that idiot is still the President of the United States when I get back, I will be sorely disappointed,” Katie says. “I’ll be fine, Charlie. Don’t worry.”

Charlie nods slowly. “Alright then,” he says. “Good luck, Katie. Tell me all about it when you get back. I promise I’ll believe every word you say.” He steps away after giving her hand one last squeeze.

Taking a deep breath, Katie starts the engine of the machine. She switches the gear from ‘space’ to ‘time’ and watches as the hologram flickers in front of her. Her audience is watching expectantly, including Charlie, who waves when his eyes meet hers. Katie takes in her surroundings one last time, takes a deep breath, and lets her fingers touch the screen.

“Alright, Katie,” she mutters. “Let’s do this.”

Katie swipes her finger to the right while keeping one hand on the gear. Out of the corner of her eye, she can sense night taking over day, then day taking over night over and over again. Her surroundings blaze one moment, then revert back to a healthier, brown state the next. Snow pours down, the sun scorches the sidewalk, and the rain washes the dirt away. After a few more swipes, Katie starts spotting signs of life and can’t help but glimpse up from her screen from time to time to watch the children dash past with their dog, the woman propose to her girlfriend, and the elderly couple feed the birds.

Everything starts to slow down at the 2018 mark. Suddenly, the streets are empty. A curious doe and fawn stand in front of her, turning their heads from side to side, wondering where all the humans have gone, before they cross over to the other side. The occasional passerby is always alone and wearing a handmade mask. Policemen drive around, reminding people to practice social distancing. It’s painful to watch. Katie swipes right to make time go by a bit faster.

It doesn’t take long for the machine to take her into 2017. The outbreak started in December of that year, but Katie waits a bit before slamming on the breaks. Better early than late, she tells herself. Her heart pounding in her chest, she watches as the world around her screeches to a halt.

“Oh my god,” she whispers to herself once she is convinced that she has, in fact, landed. She changes the gear back to ‘space’ and peels her sweaty hand from it. Both hands drop to her side limply, and her head falls back onto the headrest. 

_Holy shit_ , she thinks, shutting her eyes and trying to even out her breathing, _I did it_.

An abrupt knock startles Katie. Her eyes fly open.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” 

A police officer is standing outside, bending down so that her nose is practically touching the glass. Dread pools in the pit of Katie’s stomach. She literally just got here. Surely, she couldn’t have already gotten into trouble?

“Hi, ma’am. I just noticed your car parked here on the side of the road, so I came to check on you. Everything alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

“No problem. Have a nice day.”

“Thank you. You too,” Katie says before she starts rolling up her window. A thought occurs to her right then and she rolls the windows back down. “Excuse me, ma’am?” 

The police officer turns around. “Yes?”

“Do you happen to know the date?”

“The date? It’s Saturday. February… 20th.”

Katie smiles. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.” The officer nods at the machine. “Nice car, by the way.”

“Thanks. I fixed up my dad’s.”

Once seeing the police car drive past, Katie opens up the calendar app on her phone. _Saturday, February 20th. Saturday, February 20th. Saturday, February 20th_ , she keeps chanting to herself till she finds the correct year. She breathes a sigh of relief to have partial confirmation that she is in 2016. There’s more than a year left till December 2017, but all in all, it’s not too bad. Though it would mean…

Katie shuffles to the back seat and pries out the envelope from her suitcase. Using her nails, she tears the envelope open. Sure enough, there is a credit card inside. Surrounding it is a neon pink sticky note. 

_Jonathan Lindelöf-Ljungdahl_ , Charlie’s scrawny handwriting reads. Below it is the supposed address.

_Somewhere in McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada._

“Very helpful,” Katie mutters. She turns on the engine again. This time, she also turns the navigation system on. “Ok, then. First stop: Montreal.”

* * * Bonus Scene * * *

**  
_February 2018_   
**

“Hello? Hello? Can you guys hear me? Am I doing this right? Charlie? Meryl?”

Meryl winces. Maybe plugging in her earphones could have waited a bit. “Yes, Scott. We can hear you. You can stop yelling now.”

“Where’s our favorite Canadian ice dancer?” Charlie asks. He has his son in his arms, the two-month-old squirming in a futile attempt to hold his own head up.

“Ha ha. Very funny, Charles,” Scott says. “Tessa’s sleeping. The baby decided to be nocturnal last night.”

“Speaking of the baby, where’s Katie?”

“Yeah,” Meryl jumps in. “Where’s Katie? I want to see her!”

“I sent you guys photos!”

“That was yesterday, Scott. Babies change every day.” Meryl laughs. “I say from literally zero experience.” 

“I swear you only called to see the baby,” Scott grumbles with a smile on his face. “Give me a second. I’ve got to go steal her from my mom.”

The rectangle that once showed Scott’s face turns pitch black as he leaves to get his daughter. In the meantime, Meryl and Charlie catch up on all the things that have happened in their lives over the past couple of months: her flying to the Olympics as part of the press and not an athlete, his new upcoming projects, her engagement, and, of course, his transition into fatherhood.

“I still can’t believe you and Scott had kids at the same time,” Meryl says. “All those milestones you hit together weren’t enough, huh?”

“I know right? It’s crazy. I mean… I can’t believe—”

Charlie’s voice is drowned by the sound of Meryl’s roommate returning. Rachel looks awful, her face, barely peeking out from beneath her ensemble of woolen clothing, is pale and her cough sounds like its tearing her lungs in half. Meryl hears the excited squeal of Charlie as Scott returns with Katie. 

“Hey,” Meryl says, “you ok?” She gets up to help Rachel with her backpack, but Rachel stops her.

“Don’t come near me,” Rachel croaks. “I don’t want to get you sick.”

“Do you want some Tylenol?” 

Rachel shakes her head and heads towards the bathroom. “I got some already. I just need to sleep it off. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine in the morning. It’s always worse at night.”

“Meryl? _Meryl_?” Scott sing-songs. “Are you still—oh there you are. Thought we’d lost you to bad internet connection.”

“Sorry,” Meryl says. “I was just talking to my roommate. There must be something going around Olympic Village. Everyone’s getting si— _oh_!” Meryl gasps at the sight of Katie perched on Scott’s lap.

Scott grabs Katie’s tiny hand and waves it at the camera. “Say, ‘Hi, Auntie Meryl.’”

“Hi, Katie!” Meryl gushes. Charlie cackles at the way her voice leaps up three octaves, but quite frankly, she doesn’t care. “Do you want to see what I got you and baby Charlie?” She pulls out one of the plush white tigers she’d picked up at the store earlier and waves it at the camera, its plastic packaging rustling as she does so. “It’s a tiger! A white tiger.” 

Katie blinks a couple of times, then beams, melting Meryl’s heart all over again. Scott, on the other hand, sighs dramatically.

“Great. My daughter is a fan of mascots.” 

“Would you rather her be deathly afraid of them?” Charlie asks.

“I am not _deathly afraid_ of them, Charlie,” Scott retorts.

Meryl relaxes into her pillow, occasional huffs of laughter sputtering out at the boy’s bickering. It feels like just yesterday, they were four ambitious teenagers hungry for that Olympic gold medal. Now, with one gold and one silver each, it feels surreal to look back on that time; to think that she was once sure that once the four weren’t forced to see each other at the rink, they would only exchange pleasant greetings whenever they happened to run into each other at events. 

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand. She smiles when she sees Tessa’s name. But before she can open the message, she gets an incoming call from Maia.

“Meryl? Oh, thank god you picked up,” Maia says. “Pack your things and meet us in front of McDonald’s.”

“McDonald’s? Now? It’s almost midnight. And why do I need—”

“Just pack whatever you can and get down here. The Olympics have been cancelled.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to everyone that read the previous chapter! Thank you to the lovely folks that took the time to leave a comment and/or kudos as well. The comments are always such a joy to read. Thank you, again!

On her sixth birthday, Katie received a nine-book paperback box set of The Little House that once belonged to her mother. Laura’s face was barely visible on the cover, and the pages were the color of grocery bags, but Katie cherished those books more than any shiny, limited-edition book they had on display at the bookstores. She couldn’t quite read it by herself at the time, so she pestered her aunt into reading it to her every night until she could imagine Laura and her family riding away on their covered wagon whenever she pleased. 

In her six-year-old mind, it seemed like a ton of fun: traveling across the country, stopping once in a while to take in the scenery. Now, at the ripe age of 20, Katie realizes that in order for road trips to live up to her childhood dreams, two conditions must be fulfilled: one, she has to have enough cash to crash at hotels and get proper sleep and food; and two, she has to enjoy driving.

If there is one anyone should know about Katie, it is that she _hates_ driving. And if there is one thing anyone should know about Katie’s first and possibly last road trip, it is that by the time she reaches the Canadian border in Champlain, she is so sick of driving that, for a moment, she forgets that her identity needs to be checked.

“I am so sorry,” Katie says, handing the fake passport that she’d just fished out over to the border patrol agent. He’s a rather intimidating man with arms the size of her torso and a no-nonsense aura encapsulating him. It takes a whole lot of effort on Katie’s part to not tap her fingers on the steering wheel nervously as he flips open her passport. He looks back and forth between the passport and Katie more times than she thinks is necessary. There’s a lot of forgery in there, but the one thing that is not fake is the photo. 

“Were you visiting family?”

“A friend. She works in New York.” 

He stares down at her as he scans her passport. For a moment, Katie thinks her team back in the future (and what an odd phrase _that_ is to say) messed up. A team of two specialists was sent back to 1995 a few weeks ago to register the birth of a Kaetlyn Osmond. They stopped by a few other years on their way back, they told her over cereal the morning after they returned, to ensure everything was in place.

“We even contacted the school board a couple of times to talk about homeschooling,” Hailey had said. “As far as Newfoundland is concerned, Kaetlyn has never been enrolled in school because her _amazing_ parents move around for work a lot and so have decided to homeschool her.”

“Hailey really committed,” Ethan chimed in. “Wore a fake baby bump thing and everything.”

Katie frowned. “Wait. How long were you there?”

Hailey and Ethan looked at each other. “A while,” Hailey said.

In the end, the border patrol agent hands Katie back her passport without much fuss. Tucking her passport into her bag, Katie smiles through the polite exchanges of “Drive safe” and “Have a nice day,” then speeds off even before her window has rolled up all the way.

McGill University, as it turns out, is located only an hour away from the U.S. – Canada border. The first thing Katie does as soon as she reaches its vicinity is look around for a coffee shop. She knows trying to locate Jonathan what’s-his-name on campus is going to be impossible. His name is unique enough, but no responsible faculty member would give his personal information to a stranger. No, the only way she’s going to find this man is by having _him_ come to _her_.

Starbucks is surprisingly not too crowded for a Sunday afternoon. After taking a moment to fix her ponytail and re-apply her lipstick, Katie locks and tucks her belongings under the seats of the vehicle and walks into the café. 

The Starbucks of the past is nothing like the one she used to frequent with Aunt Jordan. There are actual humans making the coffee, for one. Also, there appears to be more choices to choose from. Not that she has any intention of drinking them, but she notices that there are five brewed coffees to choose from. Another one of those luxuries people had in the 2010’s, she supposes. She wonders if they really do all taste different. 

She gets herself a drink whose name is as overwhelming as the amount of whipped cream piled on top of it. She pays for it using Jonathan’s credit card, settles down at a table where she can see everyone who is entering and leaving, and waits. And waits. And waits.

The whipped cream has long since drowned in the unappetizing concoction it once sat on top of when a man comes bursting into the building like he’s late to his PhD dissertation defense. Katie stirs her drink. He’s younger than she expected him to be. She thought he’d at least be in his late thirties. The man whose eyes are frantically darting from table to table, from person to person, seems to be around her age. It’s a relief. She was starting to get worried she’d end up explaining herself to a sixty-year-old professor. 

His eyes finally land on her. He stares at her, still blocking the entry and earning a look of disapproval from the students entering behind him. She holds up his credit card and waves it around for him to see. He opens his wallet, fumbles through its pockets, and pulls out a credit card that, from where Katie is seated, looks similar to the one she has. 

A look of awe is splayed across Jonathan’s face as he wanders towards her. His card is hanging limply between his fingers. Katie tilts her head to get a better look. Sure enough, the two cards are the same, save for the scratches hers has from its old age.

“Thanks for the drink,” she says, leaning back in the seat to stare up at him. “What the hell took you so long?”

*

As it turns out, Jonathan Lindelöf-Ljungdahl is in the Class of 2017 and will be graduating with a degree in physics and mathematics next year. Physics is his passion, he tells her; the mathematics portion exists to appease his father. He tutors over Skype during his spare time. He also works part time at an ice rink.

“That’s why it took me ages to get here,” he says. “I was teaching a class. Turn left here.”

Katie does as she is instructed. “What class?”

“And turn right here. I teach the little ones. The ones who are learning to skate for the first time. They’re mostly four and five-year-olds. Turn left.” 

They drive into an underground parking lot. Jonathan stops her from parking in the first empty lot she spots, and instead leads her to one that is tucked away in the corner. She can see why: in addition to the one installed above every single parking space, there are at least two other security cameras nearby. 

“Can’t risk getting the time machine stolen,” he says. 

Katie snorts. “Please. Like anyone is going to steal this thing in a garage full of Lamborghinis and Aston Martins.”

“If only they knew,” he mumbles. “Did you bring, like… a suitcase or something? Or do you need to buy everything?” 

He helps Katie unload her two suitcases and wheels them towards the elevator. He asks if it’s alright if they stop by the first floor first, which it is, of course. He’s offered to let her stay at his place while she figures out what she’s going to do next, _and_ he’s given her permission to use his card to get anything she needs. There are very few things she is not alright with doing.

“I promise I won’t leech off of you for longer than I absolutely need to,” she says, admiring the shiny buttons in the elevator. “Just give me a day or two to find a job and look for a place. I did bring some cash, so—” 

The elevator doors open, and her jaw drops at the sight. If she is not mistaken, this is a hotel lobby that she is in right now. A fancy one, too, judging from the chandeliers suspended from the ceiling and the pristine carpeting that adds to its ambiance. Guests sauntering past include a businessman in his forties, a couple that looks like they’ve popped out of _Crazy Rich Asians_ , and a woman that strongly resembles Miranda Priestly. 

Jonathan jogs back towards her, sticking out like a sore thumb among all the suits and dresses. “Sorry about that. Needed to get an extra key for you.”

“You really didn’t need--”

“It’s fine. I, uh… it’s already been paid for. My dad didn’t think I was going to survive the dorms, but I actually really like it there, so it’s no biggie.”

Katie thinks it is a pretty darn big deal, the fact that she’ll be sleeping in a hotel that costs more per night than some people make per week. She’d read that regular civilians were permitted to stay in hotels in the past, but to her understanding, they only stayed for a few days during their trips. They didn’t live there. But from the moment Katie sets foot in the hotel room, it is clear, from the battered novel on the nightstand, the ensemble of junk food arranged on top of the desk, and the blanket that doesn’t match the rest of the bedding, that this room has been lived in.

She doesn’t mean for this thought to cross her mind, but as she walks around, taking in the sight before her, she can’t help but think that Jonathan must be really, _really_ rich.

“Yeah. Um… well,” Jonathan’s cheeks are dusted pink. “It’s not mine. It’s all my dad’s and my granddad’s.”

Shit. Had she said that out loud? 

“Sorry,” she says. “Thank you for letting me stay here. I swear I’ll get out as soon as I can.”

Those words are said with confidence, but she hasn’t the faintest idea how she’ll afford to pay the rent and electricity bills for close to two years. She’ll have to start job hunting tomorrow. 

“You’re free to stay as long as you want,” Jonathan says. “As I said, I live on campus. I only stay here over the holidays.”

“You don’t go home?” Katie bends down to look at the family photo that’s on the cabinet. It takes her a while to locate Jonathan; his family is huge. Next to that photo is a slightly older one of a young boy in skates. The kid’s got an awful bowl cut and a cap where his two front teeth should be that would make anyone smile. “Is this you?”

“Yeah. It was taken after my first skating recital. That dreadful hair cut was a collaboration between my aunt and my mother.”

Katie laughs. She, too, has had a few unfortunate haircuts in her childhood. The bangs she had as a toddler were only acceptable because of her age. 

“What about you, Kaetlyn? Did you do any sports growing up?”

“I used to be a figure skater, actually.”

“No way. Seriously? How’d you get started? My mom just put me in so I’d have something to do while she worked.”

“My parents were skaters, plus my grandparents owned a skating rink. For as long as I remember, I had mittens on my hands and skates on my feet.”

Jonathan opens up a pack of biscuits. He lays down a piece of tissue paper and shakes some onto it. After inviting Katie to sit down and have some with him, he asks, “Were your parents competitive figure skaters?”

“Mmhmm.” She inspects the caramel colored cookie and takes a tentative bite out of it. It has a familiar taste, but she can’t decide if she likes it or not. She takes another tiny bite.

“Would I know them?”

“Probably not. They were ice dancers.”

Jonathan snaps a biscuit in half. He tosses one into his mouth. “Try me,” he says.

“Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.” She takes a bigger bite out of the biscuit and chews it slowly. “This tastes a lot like cookie butter. Do you guys have that here?”

Her question hangs in the air. Jonathan is staring at her, his mouth mid-chew.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but it tastes amazing,” Katie says.

“Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir?”

“Yes. Why? Have you heard of them?”

“ _Have I heard of them?_ ” he echoes. “Of course, I’ve heard of them, Kaetlyn. The entire country has heard of them. I can’t believe—” He stops mid-sentence. His eyes light up, and Katie can practically see an invisible light bulb light up in his head. “You said you don’t remember your parents, right?”

Katie nods. That had been one of the first things she’d told him about herself, back in her car before they drove off to the hotel. Peering out the window every three seconds like a criminal waiting to get arrested, Jonathan had listened as Katie told him what she could.

“So, let me get this straight,” he said. “You came here from the future because something that is going to happen next year is going to trigger a sequence of events that drives us to the brink of extinction.”

“You got it.”

He groaned. “I don’t know whether to be elated that we figured time traveling out or depressed that we’re going to have to use it one day.” Then he said something she wasn’t expecting to hear. “Your parents must be worried sick.”

She told him she had no parents that would worry about her. No immediate family members, period, in fact. The sadness in his eyes had quickly been taken over by horror when she informed him that it was no big deal; most of her friends grew up without their parents, anyways.

Jonathan swipes the cookies to side to lean on the table. “Tessa and Scott are coming back.” Her confusion must’ve been glaringly obvious, because he adds, “To competition. They didn’t compete for two years after the Sochi Olympics, but they made an announcement yesterday. They’re coming back. And, as it turns out, they’re training at Gadbois. Which is where I work.”

He stops and seems to be waiting for a reaction from her. “Ok?” she says.

“Ok? That’s it?”

She doesn’t see what the big deal is. If they’re training, they’ll be inside the rink all day, then go straight back home at night. The chances of her running into them are pretty slim. Besides, it’s not like they’ll recognize her, and it’s not as though they’ll live long enough to realize that their daughter looks a lot like that college student they saw that one time somewhere in Montreal.

Jonathan seems to disagree with her sentiments. “The rink is fifteen minutes away.” 

“I’ll be careful.”

“No, I mean,” he shuffles forward, “you should come work there. You don’t have the qualifications to teach, but you know how to clean skates, right? A bunch of part-timers quit last month. I could easily get you a job.”

It’s tempting, both the potential source of income and the prospect of catching a glimpse of her parents in passing. This whole time, she’d tried her hardest not to think about her family, how healthy and happy and _alive_ they must all be right now, living their respective lives to the fullest. However, she did wonder briefly, while she was munching on a donut somewhere in the state of New York, if her parents skated in any shows in 2016. 

Watching them once from afar is a happy medium between giving in to her desires and denying her parents’ existence altogether. Working at the rink where she knew they were going to be all day, on the other hand, isn’t.

“No, thank you,” she says. “I’ve spent enough hours at the rink to last me a lifetime.”

*

Within a week of her arrival, Katie finds a job at a local coffee shop, much to Jonathan’s disappointment. It’s a tiny little thing, owned by a wonderful elderly couple that have been running the café for almost thirty years now. Most customers are regulars. By the end of her first week, Marianne informs her that she’s met pretty much everyone that will ever come.

The thing about Marianne and her husband’s coffee shop that is both endearing and panic-inducing is that almost every single drink that is served is customized. Not one customer walks out the café with just “hot chocolate” or just “espresso.” Instead, Katie finds herself scooping peanut butter into hot chocolate, sprinkling cinnamon into black coffee, and squeezing orange juice into tea. 

“I was so confused the first time I came here,” Madison says, tying her blond locks up into a messy ponytail. “All I wanted was some good-old, regular hot chocolate, but Marianne looked at me like I was crazy.”

“Just milk and chocolate is chocolate milk – not hot chocolate!” Katie says using her best Marianne impression. She’s shifting through the deck of Marianne’s recipes in search of a _Marianne’s Fluffernutter Hot Chocolate_. “Ha! Found it. So, I take it training went well today?”

Madison, to Katie’s delight, is a figure skater – an ice dancer, to be specific. She usually gets coffee, except on days when training goes so well that she decides she needs to treat herself to something that, according to her, “doesn’t taste like dishwater.”

“The opposite,” Madison says. “It was awful. Zach got mad at me, and I got mad at him, and then—” she mimes a volcanic explosion with her hands. “Hence the vodka in the hot chocolate.”

A new voice joins in on the conversation. “Vodka? In the middle of the season?”

Katie pushes the cupboard shut with her hip and puts the vodka on the counter before turning to take the man’s order.

His eyes make her mind go blank.

*

Katie met Patrick Chan for the first time when she became the first female American Junior Grand Prix Final champion in more than 20 years. She knew who he was, of course. In fact, she could list the highlights of his career as a competitive figure skater off the top of her head: three-time World Champion, two-time Grand Prix Final champion, three-time Four Continents champion, ten-time Canadian national champion, and two-time Olympic silver medalist. He was also a close friend of her parents. So close, as a matter of fact, that they had asked him to become her godfather.

Yet, Katie didn’t meet him until she was thirteen.

In her head, Katie knew it wasn’t his fault. She moved to New York when she was little and never really returned to Canada since. She visited her grandparents and other relatives, of course, but that was only a couple of weeks per year. Plus, with him flying all over the world with his students from one championship to the next, it wasn’t all that surprising that she’s never had the opportunity to meet him. Her brain also understood that no matter how close he was to her parents, Patrick Chan simply had no obligation whatsoever to have any sort of relationship with her. He was her parents’ friend—not hers. She meant nothing to him, and he meant nothing to her.

She still hated him though.

He couldn’t even look her in the eye the first time they met. Katie had been wandering around backstage, waiting to go onto the ice for the medal ceremony. She’d heard so much about the pure pride and joy you feel when you hear your country’s national anthem blaring from the speakers as your national flag goes up. It is in that moment, senior skaters had told her, that you realize that the medal you won isn’t just for you and your family—it’s also for your country. Katie thought she understood what they were talking about when she won her first international competition. However, the minute she stepped onto the ice to perform her short program, Katie realized that, as much as she’d told herself that this competition was just like every other competition she has competed in, winning the Junior Grand Prix Final would mean something else to her entirely.

Maybe it was because it’s the biggest competition she’s ever competed in.

Maybe it was because she would be winning it in the place where her parents had won their first Olympic gold medal, 20 years ago.

She was quickly shaking that thought out of her mind when she spotted him: Patrick Chan. He was waiting backstage with one of his students ( _the senior female bronze medalist_ , Katie realized) when Katie glanced to her right and he too his left. Their eyes met for a split second, before Patrick quickly broke eye contact and looked down at his feet. Katie blinked a couple of times, unsure whether to be relieved or hurt by his reaction. 

_You knew you were going to run into him eventually, Katie_ , she told herself. _You knew that he was a coach. You knew how good his students are. You’re bound to see him in other competitions too, so suck it up._

Katie didn’t realize that she was still staring at Patrick until he was standing right in front of her. His gaze was all over the place, first directed at the top of her head, then somewhere past her ears, before finally settling on her forehead.

“You must be Katie,” he said. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. It’s an honor to meet you.” It wasn’t a completely untrue statement. What aspiring athlete wouldn’t be honored to meet a three-time Olympian?

Patrick gave her a stiff nod, before opening his mouth to say something. He quickly clamped it shut, instead just staring at her. Katie desperately wanted this awkward moment to end.

“You look so much like—”

“My dad. I know. I have his eyes. My personality is all mom though, apparently.”

“Huh,” he huffed as he finally looked into Katie’s eyes properly. He only lasted a second before he looked away again, much to Katie’s exasperation. “I guess you do.” A melancholic smile danced on his lips as he added, “I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.”

“A lot of people have brown eyes.”

“Hazel.”

At this point, Katie couldn’t tell whether the annoyance that was bubbling in her blood was directed towards Patrick or herself. She wished she could give the man a genuine smile, pull him into a warm hug, and tell him that she understands why he has never tried to contact or meet her, that she can’t imagine how painful losing his best friends must have been to him. She wanted to tell him that it was perfectly fine that he felt uncomfortable talking to the living, breathing evidence of his friends’ beautiful and tragic love, because she did. Underneath all of the bitterness and anger, Katie truly did understand. It was just that sometimes, her emotions got the best of her.

“Scott would be livid if he knew that his daughter was representing the U.S.,” he chuckled. It was a good-natured joke, but it was enough to push Katie over the edge.

“Well, I don’t feel Canadian,” she snapped. The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. Katie’s eyes widened. She expected to see anger or shock in Patrick’s eyes, but to her surprise, all she saw was sadness laced with a layer of guilt and a sprinkle of pain.

A staff member told the junior medalists to get ready, much to her relief. Patrick gave her a soft smile and a soft squeeze on her shoulder. There was a moment of hesitation before he whispered, “Happy birthday, Katie.”

It was only then that Katie realized that she was winning the biggest competition of her life on the day her mom died. She was winning a gold medal on the day that her mom was killed, and she was winning it in the arena where her parents had won their Olympic gold medal. As the flag of the United States went up and the Star-Spangled Banner thundered from the speakers in the arena, the irony of it all made Katie feel sick to her stomach.

*

“Yes, Moir,” Madison says, pulling Katie back to the present. “Why? You gonna tell on me?”

“Absolutely not,” her dad – _Scott? Mr. Moir?_ – says. “You deserve a treat.”

“Was it that obvious? It must have been, if you noticed.” 

Katie busies herself by getting out the rest of the ingredients for Madison’s drink. She scoops out a generous amount of peanut butter and scrapes it into a take-out cup. 

“I don’t know how you and Tessa do it. How many years has it been now? 20,000?”

Scott laughs. “Something like that.” He peers over the counter. “Are you mixing peanut butter with vodka?”

“Yes,” Katie says. It’s a wonder she doesn’t spill the hot chocolate all over the place.

“Hey, don’t judge,” Madison says. “It tastes heavenly.”

“I’m not judging. I’m jealous, actually. It looks really good. Unfortunately, my orders are not as exciting.” 

Katie is so distracted the rest of the evening that Marianne, back from dinner with her friends, lets her take off a couple of hours early. As she tosses and turns in the bed, Katie realizes that she doesn’t remember what Scott ordered, let alone how she managed to prepare it properly. All she remembers about that first interaction with her dad since she was a toddler is how shaky her hands were as she wrote “Scott” on one cup and “Tessa” on another, and how she wrote a little note below both their names (“Have a nice day!”) and drew little smiley faces before quickly pouring in the drinks and wishing him a good evening. 

_Patrick was right_ , Katie thinks. _I would recognize those eyes anywhere._

She begins to understand why Patrick couldn’t bring himself to look into Katie’s eyes whenever he saw her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated.
> 
> I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to those of you that left a comment, kudos, and/or returned to read the third chapter of this story. 
> 
> Just one warning that specifically applies to this chapter: there is a very brief mention of abortion. I don't go into detail on it, but it does get mentioned, so if you're not comfortable reading about it, please do not read.

Winter melts into spring in the blink of an eye, and with the new season comes loneliness. Madi and her skater friends, who used to fill the café with chatter every Friday evening, go home for a well-deserved break after Worlds; Jonathan, determined to get a head start on studying for finals, spends his days and nights with his nose buried in a textbook; and Katie, thoroughly irritated that she feels lonely in the first place, channels her energy into preparing for the future.

Her main focus, of course, is the 2018 pandemic. Seated at the counter, Katie pulls up a map of Russia on her tablet and marks the approximate location of the Vector Institute with a red star. Then, she circles the countries that were first hit with the virus in blue: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Finland. Her current thoughts were that the virus made its way out of the Vector Institute and onto the Trans-Siberian Railway, where it spread to Russia’s neighbors. It was not a theory agreed upon by her team. The Russians had claimed, back in 2018, that Novosibirsk-Glavny, the closest railway station to the institute, was undergoing construction in December. No trains stopped there, they claimed. No one got on, no one got off. This, coupled with their insistence that the explosion at the virology institute didn’t damage anything other than the windows, makes Katie’s head spin. How is she supposed to stop this pandemic when she doesn’t even know if she’s working with facts or lies?

Someone clears his throat. Katie startles, hitting her knee on the counter. Waiting to place his order is her dad ( _Scott_ , she reminds herself) with an apologetic smile on his face.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He points at her tablet. “Are you planning a trip?”

Katie flips the cover back on as she mutters that she is. She expects him to order what he ordered last time, but instead, he asks her about the secret list of hot chocolates everyone except him seems to know about.

“Madi’s always bragging about it,” he says. “She said I should come when it’s your shift. Says you give her extra marshmallows. Do you only work here in the afternoons?” When she nods, he says, “That must be why I never see you. I come in the mornings.”

Katie pulls out Marianne’s box of recipes and gives it to him to look over. He looks overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of them. She doesn’t blame him. Over the past thirty years, Marianne’s regulars had entrusted Marianne with quite the number of secret family recipes.

In the end, he chooses Salted Vanilla Hot Chocolate, perches himself on a seat by the counter, and starts talking away. Aunt Jordan had always said that Katie’s dad was a social butterfly – that he had no trouble engaging in conversation with complete strangers – but actually seeing his personality in action is fascinating. He’s exactly how Katie had imagined he would be, in some ways, and so different in others.

For one, he tries to keep the conversation about her, but is surprisingly easily baited when Katie shifts the focus on to him. She thought, given his years as a public figure, he would deflect personal questions. However, he has no trouble talking about himself, maybe because he assumes, as Madi and Gabi and the other skaters had, that she has little to no knowledge about ice dance and, therefore, is unaware of his celebrity status.

Secondly, for someone who is supposedly an open book, her dad is incredibly good at keeping his true feelings and opinions hidden. Not entirely – she can tell he’s not being entirely truthful when he says he has no regrets about the Sochi Olympics – but well enough that an untrained eye wouldn’t catch it.

“I don’t think I saw you at Worlds,” Katie says. “Did you retire after the Olympics?”

“No, no,” Scott says. “We just took two years off. We’re going back to competition this fall.”

“Really? What made you want to come back?”

She’d always wondered why her parents had decided to return to competition when they were going to retire after just one season. It seemed like such a waste, quitting right before the Olympics. She supposes she could’ve Googled it; they must have made some sort of announcement. However, she only ever got as far as typing their names in the search bar. She never hit the enter button, because it felt wrong, in a way, to get to know her parents through the eyes of the press. Even now, sitting at a coffee shop talking to a complete stranger, her dad was a different man than the one she’d seen in recorded interviews.

“We imagined ourselves sitting on the couch, watching the 2018 Olympics,” he says. “The thought was unbearable.”

His words linger in Katie’s mind long after he leaves. _Unbearable_ , he’d said. Yet, they’ll retire around this time next year. She doesn’t get it.

*

She remembers a conversation she had with Charlie regarding this matter. School had been switched online for the rest of the semester, and they had decided to schedule daily Skype hangouts so that they could still study together. On that particular morning, both his mom and her aunt had left for work early, so the two had opted to have breakfast together. His was a peanut butter sandwich; hers was yogurt topped with fruits.

She doesn’t recall how the topic of the Olympics got brought up, but she assumes it had something to do with her making the National team. It was a surprise, mostly because there were rumors circulating that the United States was going to declare that they could not send their athletes to the Olympics. The possible cancellation of the 2034 Olympics led to discussions about the 2018 Olympics, which then led to the question of ‘why?’

“You sound like you wish they’d been there,” Charlie said in between mouthfuls of his sandwich. “Do you?” 

“I don’t know,” Katie said. “I just don’t get why they retired.”

“Well, you were born on December 5, 2017—”

“I know _that_. I just don’t get why my mom didn’t get an abortion.”

Charlie had choked on his juice at that. “ _Jesus_ , Katie.”

*

Katie shuffles through her bag until she finds the folder containing information about the 2017 Helsinki Gas Attack. Up until now, she hadn’t been giving it as much attention, simply because it wasn’t as significant of an event in comparison to the others her team had picked out. In fact, there were heated arguments over whether it should be included on the list at all.

“It only affected one, tiny part of Finland,” Katie recalls one woman arguing.

Another was quick to refute the statement. “The immediate area had the most casualties, yes, but people residing in neighboring areas were also reported to have acquired severe respiratory problems. This is most likely what led to the high death rate in Finland in 2018.”

“It’s still only one country.”

That was true, but history had a frightening way of playing out sometimes. One event that, at the time, seemed to only affect the lives of a small fraction of a population of a small nation led to an entire region growing complacent about severe bouts of coughing, which then resulted in the virus spreading like wildfire throughout the country and overseas. 

_During the 2018 pandemic, outbreaks in most countries in the Nordic region could be traced back to Finland_ , Katie reads. _Patient 0 in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway were Finnish nationals whose symptoms were overlooked because they had been residing in Etu-Töölö at the time of the 2017 Helsinki Gas Attack. All three stated that they had been exposed at the time of the attack and had been receiving treatment since._

Katie grabs a highlighter to highlight that sentence. She also skims the entire introductory page again to highlight any key information she needed to know. The possibility of her parents being in Finland at the time of the attack had dawned on her even before she left the future, but it is confirmed when she checks the dates of the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships: March 29 to April 2, 2017. The Helsinki gas attack took place in the evening of April 2 near the Parliament House, a 10-minute drive away from Hartwall Arena. Katie tries to think back to those nightly Skype chats she had with her dad as a child. Had he sounded like he’d just finished running a marathon, or was this her mind playing tricks on her?

Her phone starts buzzing on the pillow, and she rolls over to pick it up. 

“Guess who completely fucked up his last exam of the semester?”

Katie pulls away from the phone for a minute to confirm that the chipper lad on the other end of the call is, indeed, Jonathan. She puts the call on speaker and picks up a pen.

“Hello,” she says. “I would guess you, but you sound way too happy for someone who has come out of a bad exam.”

“Ah well, it’s over now. Nothing I can do about it.”

“Which exam was it?”

“Quantum mechanics.”

It was an open book exam, he says, which meant that the book was completely useless. They also had all the time in the world. The exam started at noon and went on till now. Katie glances at the clock. Who the hell made an exam nine hours long?

She jots down the venue and dates of the 2017 World Championships on the side as Jonathan tells her about all the snacks and blankets and comfort plushies his classmates had brought with them to the exam. She entertains the possibility that one or both of her parents had been exposed to the gas during the attack. Hartwall Arena doesn’t fall under the umbrella of areas heavily affected by the gas, but depending on which hotel they were staying at, Katie supposes it is a possibility. A headache starts to build up in her temples. 

“Do you have to go to the rink tonight?” she asks.

“Yep. I’m on my way there now, actually. I told the guys I’d put the skates away tonight. They’ve all got exams tomorrow.”

“By yourself?” 

“Mmhmm.”

Katie shuts the folder and tosses it aside. “Do you want some help? I could use a bit of fresh air.”

Jonathan sounds mildly surprised when he replies, “I’d love that.”

*

What Katie had intended to be a one-time offer turns into two weeks which turns into an indeterminate amount of time as the rink struggles to find people that are willing to come in on weekday nights and organize a mountain of skates. It both excites and scares her, the increased likelihood of her running into either of her parents. But she can’t live at the hotel forever, and she can only make so much making coffee at Marianne’s, so she accepts the job. Her parents are leaving for tour soon anyways, Jonathan reminds her. They won’t be back till the summer.

Jonathan, though now freed from his skate cleaning duties, starts teaching an adult class at night, and soon, the two settle into a comfortable routine of him meeting her at Marianne’s and the two having dinner together before walking to the rink. The arrival of two teenagers at the end of April means Katie’s work days and Jonathan’s class days don’t overlap, but neither she nor Jonathan bring it up, and pretty soon, he is hanging out at Marianne’s an awful lot without drinking hot chocolate and she is hanging out at Gadbois an awful lot without touching a single blade.

Katie is sitting by the boards, looking over some information regarding the unknown gas that was used in the Helsinki gas attack, one Friday night when Jonathan zips over from where he’d been helping some adult students with their single axel.

“I just remembered,” he says, skidding to a halt. “Your skates are done. They’re next to my bag.”

It takes a second for Katie to remember that she had asked Jonathan to take her skates into the shop that morning. She’d brought them with her from the future, intending to practice when she had the time. With the rink relatively empty due to the absence of the competitive skaters, she thought it’d be a good time to get back on the ice again. A part of her was more than eager to glide across the ice again. Another part of her was terrified. Before all of this, she used to be part of the U.S. National team. What if she can’t even manage a double toe now?

Jonathan begs that she at least take one lap around the rink “to make sure the skates have been sharpened properly.” She does exactly that, stepping off the ice as soon as she comes back to where she started. Jonathan doesn’t say anything about it that night. However, in the subsequent evenings, he somehow coaxes her onto the ice again and again, until she feels comfortable enough to try all the single jumps, then all the doubles, and finally the triples.

**_I knew you could do it!_** Jonathan texts when she lets him know that, after days of step outs and falls on her tailbone, she landed her triple salchow. He is in France, visiting his mom and sisters. Coming to the rink without him, she realizes, is weird. That feeling doesn’t sit well with Katie.

Katie leans against the boards to text him back. **_I hate the salchow._**

**_More than an axel?_ **

**_Please. I’d take an axel over a salchow any day._** She adds a string of appropriate emojis and sends it off before placing her phone back on the boards.

With the rink all to herself, Katie tries out some of the simpler jumps and spins before launching into some of the more difficult combinations that she’d been struggling with. It’s getting late, and she can practically hear Jonathan’s voice telling her to go back to the hotel, but her skates refuse to leave the ice. A sudden loneliness washes over her as she realizes that skating is the only thing that will ever be a constant in her life now. Loneliness isn’t new to Katie. She didn’t grow up surrounded by a large family, her intense training schedule didn’t allow for much time with her friends, and there were many times she stepped out onto the ice during a competition feeling completely and utterly alone.

But this was different. This was seeing people she knew and having them look at her like she’s a complete stranger; this was barely having any relationships with the people around her; this was knowing that any sense of normality she was beginning to feel had an expiration date; this was…

Tears well up in Katie’s eyes. She quickly tries to blink them away by tilting her head up towards the lights shining above the rink. In a final attempt to calm herself down, Katie grabs her phone and turns on the music to her short program. It’s not as loud as it would be if it were blaring from the speakers, but she can hear it, and that’s enough. She lets the music take over her body and begins to skate her short program, pouring her heart out onto the ice. She’s missed skating alone on the ice with no one to impress – no judge, no coach, no audience – and she’s savoring every second of it.

As her program comes to an end and she strikes her ending pose, Katie hears a soft applause coming from somewhere in the rink. Blood draining from her face, Katie frantically looks around, expecting there to be some ghost or, even worse, no one.

When she spots Marie-France and Patrice at the boards, Katie thinks that maybe, just maybe, seeing an empty rink might have frightened her less.

*

“When you said you knew how to skate, I didn’t think you meant _this_.”

Katie exits out of her spin and comes face-to-face with Madi. Before she can stop herself, Katie skates over and allows herself to be pulled into a hug. 

“Hi there,” Madi says. “I have to say, the last thing I was expecting to hear when I got back was that Marie and Patch had found a gem of a skater among the staff. How long have you been working here? And why haven’t you ever come to see me?”

Katie tells Madi everything, from being roped into cleaning skates to being caught skating alone at night. Honestly, Katie thought she was going to get fired right there and then. But instead, Patch had offered to help her work on her jumps and spins. A few days later, Marie approached Katie while she was working and suggested that she try the Gold Freeskate assessment. The decision to do so was an impulsive decision that was ruled by her emotion more than her logic, but it wasn’t like she was going to be competing or abandoning her job, so she figured there was no harm in giving it a go. She’d always wondered how Canada’s testing system worked, anyways.

“Yeah, I heard you passed with flying colors,” Madi says. “Marie has been talking about it non-stop. She was about to call you into her office, actually, but I volunteered to come get you instead.” She links her arm around Katie’s and leads her off the ice and towards Marie’s office. “I can’t believe you’ve never competed before. Your coach never suggested that you do this professionally?”

“No, not really,” Katie lies. It’s getting easier and easier as time passes, she realizes. “There were a lot of really good skaters where I skated.”

Madi knocks on the door of Marie’s office. “Better than you?”

“A lot better than me.” 

Madi laughs. “I doubt that that’s true,” she says. “Catch you later? Gabi’s back as well.”

“Absolutely.”

*

Within the first two seconds of entering Marie’s office, Katie knows that Patch can tell something is off. He thinks he is being subtle about it, but she can see how his gaze shifts from her to something that’s on the rink and then back. It’s like he is trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together without knowing how it is supposed to look when completed. Quite frankly, it’s unnerving, even though Katie knows the questions running through Patch’s mind are more along the lines of what Madi was asking and not if she could possibly be Tessa and Scott’s daughter.

“Your scores on the Gold Test were very good,” Marie comments, gesturing for Katie to sit down. 

Katie blushes furiously as she mumbles a quick “Thank you” and stares down at her lap.

“We were wondering,” Marie says, looking over her shoulder at her husband, “since you did well in your test, if you would be willing to train with us. I mean you were training with us before, but we want you to officially train with us.”

Katie blinks. Surely, she had heard incorrectly, because there was no way Marie just suggested that Katie train competitively. Marie, not catching onto Katie’s confusion, goes on about how she thinks that Katie probably has enough time to get ready for some of the smaller competitions that take place over the summer. 

“Actually, Marie, I—” Katie starts, intending to say something about how she can’t afford to train competitively, that she’s 20, that there’s no realistic chance of her accomplishing anything that would be worth them investing their time and energy into – anything that could get her out of the mess she has walked in to – but Patch doesn’t give her the chance.

“You’re meant to be on the ice. You were born to skate,” Patch shrugs like it’s the most obvious things in the world.

“That’s… very nice of you to say. But I—”

“Do you want to skate?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to skate?”

_Of course. I’ll always want to skate._ That’s what she would have said, had it been Uncle Patch asking Katie in the year 2038. But this was Patrice Lauzon asking Kaetlyn Osmond in the year 2016. That complicated things.

“Make a list of pros and cons” is what Aunt Jordan would have suggested. So that’s what Katie does as rapidly as she can under the expectant gazes of Marie and Patch.

On one hand, training under Marie and Patch would mean that she would get to keep up her physical fitness while she was living in the past – that maybe when she went back to the (hopefully) changed future, she could go back to her skating career. She would be working with some of Canada’s greatest coaches and skating on the same ice as some of the world’s greatest skaters, including her parents.

Her parents. Training at Gadbois would mean that she would get to see them every day. It would mean that she would be sharing the ice with them; it would mean that she could watch them skate every day; and it would mean that she could even, perhaps, form some sort of relationship with them. 

But at what cost?

“I want to skate,” Katie says. “I will always want to skate. But it’s not that simple.”

Patch’s eyes soften at her confession. “Why don’t you train here for a couple of weeks and see how it goes? If, at the end of three weeks, you decide that you don’t want to do this, you’re free to go. We won’t hold anything against you.”

“Just promise us that if you quit, it’s because you don’t want to skate,” Marie says. “Not because you’re worried about the money or your age or your lack or experience or anything like that.”

At a loss for words, Katie stares at Marie and Patch for the longest time, before giving them a little nod and watery smile.

*

The first person Katie runs into when she trails behind Marie towards the ice dancers is Zach, who, to her horror, takes one look at her as he is walking towards the locker rooms and shouts, “Hey, Moir! Did you knock up some girl when you were a teenager?”

Katie thinks now would be a great time for the ground to swallow her up.

Marie, noticing Katie’s increasing discomfort, takes Katie’s hand and leads her towards the boards. Neither Madi nor Gabi are there, but Katie spots her dad ( _Scott, Katie_ , a little voice chastises) skating around on the ice. Her mom ( _Tessa_ , Katie’s internal voice reminds her) is nowhere to be seen, much to Katie’s relief.

Spotting Marie, Scott skids over to the boards with a big smile on his face. Katie drops her gaze to the floor as Scott gives Marie a warm hug, feeling out of place as they chat about how their morning has been. It’s silly, but Katie stands perfectly still, locking her knees and controlling her breathing so that it is even and shallow, in the hopes that she blends effortlessly into the background. Just as she thinks she might be succeeding, Marie’s gentle voice startles Katie into looking up.

“Kaetlyn,” she says. “This is Scott. Scott, this is Kaetlyn.”

Katie steps forward stiffly and glances up at Scott’s face before holding her hand out for a handshake. There’s a beat of awkward before Scott grabs her hand and pulls her towards him, embracing her in a warm hug. Face squished against his chest, Katie blinks a couple of times, trying to relax her body into something other than the stiff wooden plank she is right now. She robotically pats Scott’s back a couple of times before pulling back.

“Kaetlyn!” Scott beams. “You work at Marianne’s, right? I didn’t know you were a skater. Welcome to Gadbois! Marie and Patch have been talking about you non-stop for the past couple of days.” There’s a moment of silence, where Katie was probably supposed to jump in and say something friendly to break the ice. She’s rummaging through her brain for something to say when Scott asks, “Can I call you Katie?” 

Katie’s breath catches in her throat. 

“Um… no.” Katie cringes at her own response. My goodness. Could she be any ruder?

“Ok,” Scott nods, turning around to skate back to the middle of the rink. He dramatically spins around just as Katie is about to leave and yells “See you around, Katie-Kate!” with a smirk on his face.

*

Despite Katie’s mind being all over the place during practice, her first day of raining goes relatively alright. Still, she somehow finds herself locked up in a bathroom stall at the end of the day, trying to keep her panic to a bare minimum. She finds herself punching in Charlie’s phone number out of habit before she catches herself and presses the back button. Jonathan’s number is what she looks for next. Instead of calling, she opts to text him. Any of the other skaters could walk into the locker rooms any second, and the last thing Katie needs is for someone to overhear her talking to him about… everything.

 ** _Jonathan_** , her trembling fingers type out. **_I think I made a huge mistake._**

After she sends that first message, there is an infinite loop of typing and deleting as Katie tries to summarize the mess that she has gotten herself into. The severity of the situation weighs on Katie the more details she includes in her message, and by the time she’s telling Jonathan that she thinks something awful – something awful that she may or may not be able to stop -- will happen to her parents next year, she is tempted to run back to the hotel and time travel back to 2038.

But she can’t. She has a job to do. If there wasn’t a lot riding on this mission before, there certainly was now.

In the end, Katie deletes the extensive recount of the past two months and opts for a simple **_I’m training at Gadbois now._** She hits the send button before she can change her mind and curls up against the door of the cubicle, her face buried in her arms to muffle the sounds of her harsh, panicked breathing.

“Hey,” Katie hears a hesitant voice coming from the other side of the door. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

The woman doesn’t say anything, so Katie assumes that she has left until something slides under the door.

Katie recognizes the red packaging of the Lindt milk ball immediately.

“Chocolate always makes me feel better,” the woman explains.

“Thank you,” Katie says, cradling the chocolate in her hands. Without thinking, she blurts, “Do you always carry chocolate around with you in your bag?”

The woman laughs. “Not always. I drove out to buy these this morning. I felt like I might need them later.” She hesitates before confessing, “I actually came in here to lock myself in the bathroom and cry my heart out.”

“Rough day?”

“Yeah. Something like that. You?”

“Same.” It is only then that Katie realizes that she hasn’t introduced herself to the stranger that’s been kind enough to keep her company this whole time. “My name is Kaetlyn, by the way. I’m sorry… I should’ve introduced myself earlier.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Kaetlyn,” the woman says. “I’m Tessa.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this chapter! Please feel free to leave any questions or comments down below.
> 
> I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I would like to say a massive thank you to those of you that commented, clicked the kudos button, and/or decided to come back after reading the previous chapters. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this next snippet of Katie's time traveling adventures!

A couple of hours after his flight lands, Jonathan shows up at the hotel with a box of macarons and a snow globe. Delighted to be in his company again, Katie demands that he tell her everything about his trip. In return, she catches him up on everything that has been going on, from befriending her parents to learning two new routines that Marie had choreographed unbeknownst to Katie. 

She was due to compete in a few days, actually, in her second competition of the season. Apparently, Skate Canada held something called a National Summer Series every year. Her understanding was that if she did well in both the events she was registered for, she could get a bye through to the Skate Canada Challenge. The naming of it all confused Katie, but she supposed the Challenge was the U.S. equivalent of the Sectional Final. 

Jonathan looks more excited at the prospect of Katie competing than herself. “So, if you do really well, you could compete at Nationals?”

Katie nods, turning the snow globe over and watching the snow flutter down onto what appears to be a cathedral of some sort. 

It was funny how easily her competitive spirit was re-ignited once she started training again. Just a few weeks ago, when Marie and Patch suggested she think about registering for the Summer Series, Katie was fully prepared to decline, or at the very least fall on every jump so they wouldn’t ever bring up competing again. But her own darn personality hadn’t allowed for that to happen, of course. She not only went to that first competition but won. When she returned to Gadbois, she had been met with squeals and a darling little cupcake that Madi had made.

“It was kind of nice, actually,” Katie says. “When I competed in the future, everyone always said I won only because of who my parents were.” That was why she opted to represent the U.S. instead of Canada. However, even then, there were accusations that the Canadian judges favored Katie over the others. On some days, it motivated her to work even harder; on others, she was tempted to retire early and swerve over to a completely unrelated path.

“I get that,” Jonathan says. “I chose McGill over the Ivy Leagues for the same reason. Didn’t want to get in because my sister went there or because my dad donated a shit ton of money.” 

She’s fairly certain he could’ve gotten in on his own merits. He shrugs.

“Maybe,” he says. “I guess I’ll never know.” His eyes twinkle. He pops the rest of his macaron in his mouth. “So, Nationals, huh? It’d be pretty cool if you made the National team. A huge ‘Fuck you!’ to the people in the future that thought you only made it because of your last name.”

Katie rolls her eyes fondly at his enthusiasm. “I haven’t qualified for Nationals.”

“ _Yet_. You haven’t qualified for Nationals _yet_. But you could, right? Just win the second summer competition, win the challenge, and boom. You’re at Nationals. Easy peasy.” 

She reaches over for the snow globe and shakes it absentmindedly. “It’s not that simple.”

“You are an Olympic gold medalist, Kaetlyn. From the future. Where skaters were probably landing quintuple jumps. I’m pretty sure you could take on a couple of skaters from the 2010’s.”

Katie’s hand freezes. She’s never told him about her skating career, except that she represented the United States.

Jonathan peers up at her, very much resembling a dog that knows it has gotten itself into trouble. “I may or may not have seen your medal while you were taking out your skates. It _is_ yours, isn’t it?”

Ah, that makes sense, Katie thinks. She had brought, among many other things, her one Olympic medal back with her, tucked inside her duffel bag. She vaguely recalls tossing it back in when it fell out while she was taking her skates out. Jonathan asks if he may see it. Katie smooths out the ribbon as she brings it over and sets it in his palms.

“No one landed quintuple jumps,” she says. “Quads are as far as we get, I’m afraid.”

Jonathan holds the medal up like it’s the eighth wonder of the world. “Wow,” he breathes. He gingerly turns the medal over. “Vancouver 2034?” 

“Not many countries could afford to build new sports facilities to host the Olympics, so they picked among previous host cities. The ones whose facilities were still in good condition or needed little repair.”

“That bad, huh?” He places the medal on the table and traces the design with his finger. “Is it global warming?”

“How would I stop global warming?”

“What is it then? Where does it all go wrong?”

Katie doesn’t have a Ph.D. in some field that is a mouthful to say and impossible to remember correctly, but she’s been around enough people that do to know that the answer to that question is that no one knows – all they could do was guess and hope for the best. Everyone’s worst nightmare was that the human race was destined to go down one way or another – that what they were doing wasn’t steering them towards a different destination, but rather onto an alternate path headed towards the same fate. 

“I see,” Katie’s psychologist said when Katie brought this up in a NASA-mandated counseling session. “And is this a nightmare that you share?”

“Yes,” Katie said.

Her psychologist waited for her to elaborate. When it became clear that Katie had nothing else to say, he prompted her by asking, “Have you ever talked to them about it?”

“Yes. But it’s different for them.”

“How so?”

“They won’t remember any of this anyways. I’ll be the only one who knows if the changed future is just as bad as it is now.” 

“And how does that make you feel?”

Katie fiddled with her hair, looping it around her finger. “Have you read _The Giver_?” she asked.

Katie snatches the medal off of the table. Her eyes fixed on the snow globe, she wraps the ribbon around until a majority of the gold is hidden. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she says after a while. “It’s not going to happen.”

*

Katie returns from the second competition with another gold medal, a bye through to the Skate Canada Challenge, and an impressive bruise on her hip. That fall was easily in the top ten most embarrassing skating moments in Katie’s entire life, and she’s glad it happened at a small, regional competition and not an international one. Not that she would compete internationally, of course.

“Yeah,” Madi says as she gathers her hair in a ponytail that is somehow messy and neat at the same time. “It’s better to get those mistakes out in the smaller competitions, I mean. You could totally compete internationally. You’d give those girls a run for their money.” She winks at Katie through the mirror. “Anyways, we should celebrate this weekend, once all the federations have gone.”

Neither Patch nor Marie had seemed particularly happy when they announced that both the U.S. and Canadian skating federations would be paying Gadbois a visit this week. Tessa and Scott didn’t look thrilled at the prospect either. This was going to be Skate Canada’s third visit.

“How come the French aren’t coming?” Katie asks.

“Why would they? They know Gabi and Guillaume will deliver. They don’t need to fly across the ocean to confirm it.” 

“So will Tessa and Scott,” Katie huffs. As an afterthought, she adds, “And so will you and Zach.”

Madi blinks at Katie’s sudden outburst. Then, she laughs. “Alright, little one. Calm down,” she says, patting Katie on the top of her head. “They’re just coming to see how we’re doing. Ask us about our break and what type of programs we’re thinking of doing and all that. It’s not that bad.” She pauses. “It’s weird that Skate Canada is coming again, though. Weren’t they here last week?”

The door squeaks open right then, depriving Katie of the chance to answer. Tessa walks in, her bag in one hand and a cup of coffee from Marianne’s in the other. Upon greeting both Madi and Katie with a smile, Tessa goes over to the opposite corner of the room and starts getting ready for the day.

“Alright then,” Madi says after a moment of awkward silence. “See you out on the ice, Kaet.”

*

It’s common courtesy to not speak ill of the dead.

This is what Katie overheard her aunt saying to her ex-boyfriend, Richard. Katie was six at the time, and she had never heard Aunt Jordan sound so angry in her entire life. 

The two of them had returned to New York from attending her dad’s funeral just a few days ago. It was a confusing event that seemed to both mourn and celebrate, and Katie was glad to be back home, where she could cry whenever she pleased without having a sea of adults fussing over her. 

It was the middle of the semester, but Katie was allowed to stay home under the condition that she complete her school work to the best of her ability. Charlie White, Katie’s best friend since before they could walk, was the one who was tasked with bringing Katie’s folder back and forth, going to school with completed assignments to be graded and leaving with new worksheets. He was who Katie thought had rung the doorbell that afternoon. 

She padded down the stairs, hand skimming the railings, excited to see someone other than her aunt. When she was half-way down the last staircase, she caught sight of her aunt standing by the door. It was barely open, but from the slick black hair that was visible from where Katie was standing, she knew it wasn’t Charlie. 

That’s when she’d heard it: “It’s common courtesy to not speak ill of the dead, Richard.”

Perhaps this is why, in Katie’s mind, Tessa Virtue is a woman with no flaws, perfectly wonderful in every single way. To Katie, her mom is a patchwork carefully stitched together from other people’s memories, and no one ever spoke ill of Tessa. It was a beautiful way to remember her by, but it also made her… two-dimensional, for lack of a better word. Fictional. Unrelatable. God-like. Impossible to live up to. Easy to disappoint. 

Initially, when Katie first started training at Gadbois, this was what made Tessa difficult to approach. Despite their lovely interaction in the bathroom stall, Katie and Tessa were still no more than acquaintances that happened to skate at the same rink. It wasn’t as though Tessa wasn’t nice – she was perfectly polite to everyone at the rink and was easy to strike up a conversation with. But she rarely started them, and she never joined in on any small talk or any of the Marie-mandated Gadbois bonding time outside the rink. 

So, Katie thinks her surprise when Tessa calls her name is justified. 

“Yeah?” Katie says, her head snapping up from where she’d been putting her skates on. 

“I heard that you did really well at the summer skate.” Tessa smiles. “Congratulations.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t hear about the part where I belly-flopped onto the ice?”

Tessa winces. “Butterfly?”

“That’s the one.” 

“I forgot how difficult those are. You make it look so easy.” Tessa leans down to lace her skates. “Did your training schedule change?” 

It takes Katie a moment to realize that Tessa is referring to the fact that Katie is putting on her skates instead of sneakers. On most mornings, Katie heads to the gym while the ice dancers go through some drills across the ice. 

“No. Well, yes, but it’s only for this week. Patch moved some things around so that you guys could have the ice to yourselves when Skate Canada gets here.”

“Oh.” She sighs, then opens her mouth to apologize. Katie doesn’t let her.

“Don’t. I much prefer skating to jumping rope at the crack of dawn. You’re doing me a favor. Besides, Scott beat you to it.”

“He did? Why? It wasn’t his fault.” Tessa’s eyes glow with anger. “ _I_ was the one who messed up on the lift.”

“Funny you say that. Scott said he was the one who messed up.”

“Well, he wasn’t. I was the one who messed up on the lift and then I fumbled on the twizzles and then I…” 

Tessa runs a hand through her hair, her teeth biting her lower lip nervously, and _oh_. Katie understands. 

Tessa is afraid that Skate Canada will pick another team as their favorite. It’s a ridiculous thought, but Katie sees where it’s coming from. Taking two seasons off is a risky move. There is no shortage of young skaters that are thirsty for the gold medal, and without competing consistently, there is simply no way of knowing how you measure up to the others. Still, Virtue and Moir were Canada’s best shot at clenching the gold in ice dance in any competition, including the Olympics. You didn’t need to come from the future to see that.

“Tessa,” Katie begins calmly. “I don’t know what happened last week, but I’m fairly certain that you have nothing to worry about.” Tessa is about to interrupt, but Katie motions for her to stop. “Your chemistry is even better now than it was before your break, and your technique is still strong. You may have messed up last week, but they’re not going to brush you two aside that easily. I know you’re worried about how you’ll do against the top ice dancers of last season, but don’t worry about it yet. Who knows?” Katie pulls the door open and motions for Tessa to go through. “You guys might be undefeated the whole season.”

Tessa lets out a little huff of laughter as she steps outside the changing room. “That’s probably not going to happen, Kaetlyn. But thank you.”

*

During her teenage years, Katie, like most singles skaters of her generation, had little problems landing quads. Her Olympic gold medal was proof of it. Then, when she was 18, she broke her leg and lost her quads completely. With or without a harness, she’s never been able to land them since then. So, although she finds it odd that Patch is asking her to try, she doesn’t worry that she might land a quad in front of three pairs of ice dancers and two federations.

Just as she expected, Katie falls onto the ice the first time, the second time, the third time, and the fourth time she tries. On her fifth, sixth, and seventh attempts, she doesn’t end up on her tailbone, but she doesn’t land it properly either. And then on her eighth attempt, her blade hits the ice and sends her gliding instead of crashing.

The exhilarating joy her success brings lasts exactly three seconds. After that, the deafening silence of the rink catches up to Katie. She feels oddly self-conscious as she straightens up. The other skaters, who were chattering amongst themselves, stare at Katie like she’s grown an extra head, and Patch, upon giving Katie some minor corrections, helps her take the harness off, his eyes flitting over to the benches once in a while. 

Before Katie has time to panic, she is lifted off the ice and spun around in fast circles, an excited Scott screaming in her ears. Applause and hollering from the other skaters follow, Tessa’s laughter joining in a few seconds later. It makes her squeal with delight, but doesn’t do much to dissipate the uneasiness that brews in her stomach as she watches the Skate Canada officials shut their notebooks close and head towards Marie’s office. 

Katie doesn’t know what discussions were had in the office. All she knows at the end of the day is this: Skate Canada wants her to participate in the high performance camp. And from the look on the men’s faces when she declines, they won’t take no for an answer. 

To be fair, Skate Canada is incredibly kind and listens closely to all of the excuses Katie makes up to not go to the camp. They are also very insistent that she think it over and get back to them at a later date and are so polite when doing so that she has no choice but to nod.

She still declines when she calls them back the next week and is prepared to decline again. However, her actions only draw more attention to her and invite more questions that she is unprepared to answer, hence why she accepts the invitation the third time Skate Canada calls Patch. 

By a stroke of luck, Katie ends up rooming with Tessa for the duration of the camp. From the moment the trio leave Montreal, it’s clear that Tessa has made it her mission to make sure Katie never feels out-of-place amongst the swarm of Canadian skaters. It’s incredibly sweet, the way Tessa rattles off all the assessments and presentations Skate Canada will most likely have prepared on the drive there and how she never leaves Katie’s side once the camp starts. 

“Everything’s going well so far, believe it or not,” Katie informs Jonathan at the end of the second day. “They had us go through our programs today. They made me try some quads as well, but I only landed one, so…” She shrugs, even though he can’t see her. 

“Darn,” Jonathan sighs rather dramatically. “I was hoping they’d send you off to international competitions.”

Katie snorts. “I doubt that’ll happen any time soon. They looked pretty uninterested in my skating.” 

She should have knocked on wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you are all staying safe the best you can.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers!
> 
> First of all, thank you to everyone who left a comment on the previous chapter. They never fail to make my day, and I really appreciate that you took the time to leave them. Thank you again!
> 
> Secondly, I would like to warn you that this chapter does get into a little more detail on the Helsinki Gas Attack that was mentioned in previous chapters. Again, there isn't anything too graphic, but if it makes you uncomfortable, please do not read on. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Katie’s assignment to the Finlandia Trophy seems to surprise no one but her. Her win, on the other hand, catches everyone off-guard, including Patch. It’s a strange feeling, being on top of the podium and watching the Canadian flag go up instead of the flag of the U.S. She has always said that she feels more American than Canadian, but the pride that swells in her heart at the sight of the red maple leaf makes her question herself. 

The next day, she wakes up at the crack of dawn and hops in the shower while Meagan is going through her morning yoga workout. Her portion of the competition is over, but she is due to fly back to Canada with Patch, Madi, and Zach. That gives her two days in Finland during which she is free to do whatever she pleases, and she plans on making the most out of it.

Patting her hair dry, Katie flips through her planner. All she’s got jotted down for today and tomorrow are the two ice dance events. A map of Finland that she’d picked up at the lobby is sticking out from where she’d shoved it in a few days ago. She opens it and scans the map.

“Going sightseeing?” Meagan asks, coming down from the downward dog. She transitions right into the plank.

“Mmhmm. I’ve always wanted to visit Helsinki. Do you want to come?”

Her voice sounding like she’s lounging on the couch instead of being in the middle of a workout, Meagan says, “I’ll pass. Eric and I are flying back early.” Exhaling, she comes down from her plank and goes into the cobra. “Helsinki is nice, though, I heard. You’ll have to show us around after Worlds.”

Katie folds the map delicately and slips it into her bag. “In the unlikely event that I’m there, I’d be more than happy to.”

*

It takes around an hour to get to the Parliament House in Helsinki. Once she arrives, she wanders around, snapping photos of the building like the ordinary tourist she has disguised herself to be.

The Helsinki Gas Attack was a nightmare of an event to piece together for the police. Most of the people that were present during the attack died instantly; others sustained significant injuries and were unable to provide any useful information. 

“My team and I were dispatched with very little information,” one of the first responders recalled. “A bunch of people were calling 112 at the same time, but none them said anything. Some coughed and there was some screaming in the background, but other than that…” He paused to catch his breath. “What we saw when we got there… it was like some scene out of a horror movie. People were scattered all over the grass, and the way they had collapsed looked… it was wrong. Their bodies were twisted and some still had their eyes open. All were dead.” 

Katie had to give the woman that was asking the questions a ton of credit. She didn’t flinch one bit while listening. She also asked the next question without hesitation.

“Did you notice anything else?”

“Well, I saw the truck, of course. Parked right in front of Parliament House. It was a huge tank truck. Hard to miss.”

It was this truck, it was later concluded, that held the highly volatile liquid before it was released intentionally by the driver. The driver never made it to the hospital. The pharmaceutical company that he was working for later came forward and accepted responsibility for the disaster. The real culprit of the high death toll, however, was social media: all the victims had their phones in their hands, ready to capture and share the mysterious mist with the rest of the world.

Music playing through her earphones, Katie unfolds the map and looks for the red ‘x’ that marks the approximate spot the truck was parked. Then, her eyes trace the areas enclosed by the large red circle. Wanting to get a better understanding of how far the gas travelled, Katie walks across the grass and towards the park located across the street. She is waiting to cross the road when the soothing Disney medley is replaced by the obnoxious shrill of her ringtone.

“Congratulations on your win _and_ your first grand prix assignment, Katie-Kate!” Scott says when Katie answers the call. “You’re one step closer to getting your own Wikipedia page!”

“Thanks,” Katie says. “I didn’t know—”

“Ow! What—” He stops himself, presumably to lower his voice. “What was that for?”

From the other end of the line, Katie hears the muffled voice of a woman. Katie’s footsteps slow down. The cars honk at her. She scurries across to avoid being run over, then listens in on their conversation, more amused than anything else. They might think they’re being discreet, but it’s very clear that the friend that Scott is hanging out with in the middle of the night is Tessa. 

"Oh, she doesn’t--you didn’t know?”

“Patch told me that it was a possibility,” Katie says. “I didn’t know it was confirmed. He’s a bit busy with Madi and Zach at the moment. Does your lady friend happen to know which one I’ve been assigned to?”

Her question is met with radio silence. 

“Hello? Scott?”

“You were put in Skate Canada,” Scott says. “I heard. From Marie.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

"Right? It’s the best one. We’re going to have a blast.” He yawns. “Anyways, congratulations, again. See you when you get back.”

“Good night, Scott. Say hi to Tessa for me.”

*

Her silver medal at Skate Canada earns Katie a second grand prix assignment in China. The silver medal she wins there then earns her a place at the Grand Prix Final in Marseille, France. It also leads to Kaetlyn Osmond getting her own Wikipedia page, a development that she supposes she should’ve been mentally prepared for but catches her off-guard nonetheless.

It’s Patrick Chan that informs her of this headache-inducing creation, and he does so on the Team Canada group chat, of all places. Katie is about to switch her phone to airplane mode when she sees the message. Her eyes immediately dart over to Tessa and Scott, who are both silently staring out the window, her fingers entwined with his. Quickly, before the plane takes off, Katie searches herself up on Google, clicks on her Wikipedia page, and scans it.

Much to her relief, Kaetlyn Osmond’s Wikipedia page is mostly blank. Her scores from the Finlandia Trophy, Skate Canada, and Cup of China are there, along with the music used for her programs and the names of her coaches and choreographers, but that’s no more information than what’s on her ISU biography. Breathing a sigh of relief, Katie switches her phone off and tosses it into her bag. She has other things to worry about, namely if she should meddle with the Helsinki Gas Attack or let things run its course.

Upon her return from Finland, Katie laid out all of the photos she’d taken during her visit and began committing them to her memory. On her laptop were bookmarks of accommodations near the Parliament House as well as affordable flights. She and her team from the future had come up with a plan detailing what Katie was going to do if she were to decide to intervene in the Helsinki Gas Attack. However, she now had to make some adjustments. Canada had two spots secured in the ladies singles discipline at Worlds. Making the team would mean she would have one less lie to tell, but it also meant that she would have to scrap most of her initial plans. 

Fortunately, the ISU had already released a fair bit of information regarding the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships. It didn’t take long to confirm that Hartwall Arena was going to serve as the competition venue. Finding out where the athletes were going to be staying wasn’t as cumbersome as she thought it would be either. 

Opening a new tab, Katie searched the hotel up on Google Maps, then grabbed her pen so she could jot its name down in her notebook. She glanced over at the screen to see if it had finished loading. It had. The location of the red dot made her breath catch in her throat: Scandic Park Helsinki was located fifteen minutes away from the Parliament House. By foot – not by car. 

Katie rests her head against the window and stares down at the streets of Montreal until the houses and cars vanish beneath the clouds. There is no question of the hotel falling outside the areas that were affected by the gas attack. There is also no questioning where Scott and Tessa will be on the evening of April 2, 2017. Katie has been to enough competitions to know that that’s when the banquet will be held, most likely on the first floor of the hotel. 

Katie glances across the aisle to where Scott is engrossed in a movie, Tessa’s head resting on his shoulder. It strikes her again right then that the lives of hundreds of people are in the palm of her hand. Her next move should be obvious, one would think. But Katie finds herself hesitating, because in the mix of futures she has the power to re-write is her parents’ and, as a consequence, her own. If Tessa and Scott are not forced into untimely retirement, what will become of her? 

Scott must have felt her stare, because he peers over and cocks his head to the side. The subtle movement is enough to interrupt Tessa’s slumber. As soon as he feels Tessa stir, Scott’s attention shifts immediately. Murmuring for her to go back to sleep, he runs his fingers through her hair the same way Katie remembers her dad combing through hers all those years ago. Then, still keeping an eye on Tessa, Scott reaches over to her tray. He looks down the aisle to make sure no one is coming before he grins at Katie.

“Catch,” he mouths.

A packet of Skittles flies through the air. Katie manages to snatch it out of the air before it can hit Marie on the forehead. 

“Thanks,” she mouths back.

*

In one of the experiments conducted by Dr. Rodríguez and her team, a litter of mice were bred in what they referred to as Timeline A. These offspring were then sent back a few months to before they were conceived. The scientists, upon receiving these mice, kept the two parent mice in separate cages, thereby creating Timeline B.

Every single one of the offspring survived. No one could explain why or how. They just did, scuttering around their cage, stranded in a timeline that they will never belong in like some broken piece of space trash.

*

Jonathan’s early graduation from McGill more or less overlaps with Katie’s first Canadian national title. The first time they see each other after she returns from Ottawa, both show up at the restaurant with a bouquet of flowers and a small gift. Somehow, they chose the same color paper to wrap their flowers in and nearly identical gift bags. It makes the gift exchange quite humorous. They try their best to stifle their giggles so as to not disturb the other customers.

“Mine also serves as a very belated birthday present,” Jonathan says. “If that is your real birthday, that is. December 5th. Not that it would matter if it isn’t – we can always celebrate twice if you ever feel like divulging it to me.”

Katie tucks the gift underneath her chair. “It is,” she says.

“Huh,” Jonathan says. “That’s smart. One less thing for you to memorize.” He tears off a piece of bread, then chuckles. “Of course you were born in the winter. When else would Tessa and Scott’s kid be born?”

 _Not the year before the bloody Olympics, if she had any consideration of her parents’ careers_ , she thinks. Outwardly, however, all she does is shrug.

“How was your interview?” 

Jonathan was currently in the process of securing an internship to keep him busy till he had to go off to graduate school. The last time they talked, he had just heard back from the Swedish Space Corporation. That he passed the first round didn’t surprise Katie at all. She figured he would end up working for one space agency or another in the future, seeing as it was his credit card she was given. 

His eyes twinkle at the question, and he launches into his story of how his interview went down. Half of what he is talking about makes no sense to Katie, but his enthusiasm is so infectious that it takes no effort on her part to try to keep up, nodding and asking for clarifications when necessary. For a blissful thirty minutes, Katie is Kaetlyn, Jonathan’s friend that wants to be caught up on anything and everything she missed while she was off at Nationals, and not Katherine, the time traveler with the fate of the world riding on her next move. But when Jonathan excuses himself to use the restroom and her feet brush the gift bag under her chair, it strikes her just how little time she has left before she has to make her choice. 

Jonathan is donning a mischievous grin when he returns. She humors him by pretending she didn’t notice and is rewarded with a slice of chocolate cake he must have secretly ordered. There’s a lit candle sticking out of it and the words _Happy Birthday!_ written in chocolate next to it. 

Once the waitress leaves, Jonathan pushes the plate closer to her. 

“In case we never get to celebrate your birthday together ever again,” he says. “Happy birthday, Kaetlyn.”

Tears spring to her eyes. She traces the wax dripping down the candle with her gaze to conceal them. “My name is Katie, by the way. Short for Katherine.”

“Katie,” he tries out. He smiles. “Happy birthday, Katie. Close your eyes and make a wish.”

“Blow it out with me. We’re celebrating you today too.”

At first, he hesitates, but he soon closes his eyes. “Ok. Ready? One… two…”

_Three._

*

Imagine you are standing beside a train track. In the distance, you spot a trolley hurtling down the tracks towards five people who are unable to hear or see it coming. Screaming at them to move won’t do them any good: they’re tied up and won’t be able to move out of harm’s way.

As this disaster looms, you glance down and see a lever connected to the tracks. You realize that by pulling on this lever, you can divert the trolley down a second track away from the unsuspecting people. However, on this side track is a single person, who, too, is tied up and is just as oblivious as the group on the first track. Would you pull the lever?

What if there are hundreds of people on the first track and only one person on the other?

What if the lone person, unlike the hundreds on the other track, can see and hear the trolley coming his way?

What if that lone person is you?

*

To say that the Four Continents Championships was a disaster is the understatement of the century. Really, it’s a miracle that she finished so close to the podium: her free skate score was one of the lowest she has gotten her entire senior career.

Another miracle is that Skate Canada doesn’t kick her off of the Worlds team. Although the fact that she will, again, be roommates with Tessa concerns her a bit, Katie is grateful that she won’t have to construct an elaborate story for why she will be in Helsinki till the third of April.

Jonathan swings by the hotel unannounced the night before she leaves for Finland. Katie is in the middle of packing her things, and her level of comfort with him shines through in the way she doesn’t bother hiding the gas mask and bottles of antidote that are resting on top of her skating costume when she opens the door. 

It never ceases to amaze Katie just how little Jonathan asks. Even now, watching her hide objects clearly not meant for skating amidst her warmup clothes, he doesn’t utter a single question until she is zipping her suitcase up.

“Does this mean you’re leaving soon?” he says.

“That’s your question? I thought you’d ask me something a lot more difficult to answer,” she says, keeping her tone light. “I’m not leaving yet. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for a bit longer.” She rolls the suitcase over so that it’s not in the way. It hits the wall with a soft thump. “When it’s time for me to leave, I promise I’ll tell you. I won’t suddenly disappear. Not on you, anyways.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You can even watch me drive off, if you want.”

Jonathan seems satisfied with her answer. He fiddles with the snow globe he bought her months ago. “You know,” he says after a while, “my offer still stands. If you ever need help or just want someone to talk to, I’m here.”

“We talk all the time, Jonathan.”

He scoffs. “You know what I mean.”

*

Only the bedside lamp is switched on when Katie returns to her room. She tiptoes towards her bed, expecting Tessa to be fast asleep, but her bed is empty.

Katie swings her legs back and forth, adrenaline still pulsing through her veins from winning the silver medal, as she waits for Tessa to finish washing up for bed. She is being ridiculous, Katie thinks even as she is humming some random tune out of pure joy. NASA didn’t invest billions of dollars for her to come here and attend skating competitions. She needs to come down from her high and focus. The Helsinki Gas Attack is the day after tomorrow, and, so long as she has decided to intervene, she can’t screw up.

The water stops running and the bathroom door opens.  
“  
Hi, Kaetlyn,” Tessa says. “When did you get back?”

“Just now. I… are you ok?”

Tessa nods, her face as white as a sheet. Katie watches worriedly as Tessa more or less stumbles back to her bed. 

“Are you sick?” Katie asks.

“It’ll pass.” Tessa pulls the covers up to her nose. “It happens sometimes, when I get really nervous,” she admits a few seconds later. “It’s not a big deal. I’m just worried about tomorrow’s competition, that’s all. This season has been a dream so far, and I’m afraid I’ve… I’m afraid I’ll screw everything up.”

Katie stares blankly at Tessa’s curled up form. It was unusual for Tessa to be so open about what it is that is bothering her. Katie takes a moment to weigh her options, then pads over to the bed and kneels down so that she can look Tessa in the eye.

“Tess,” Katie says. “You’re not going to screw up. Just because you’ve been having a great season doesn’t mean that the other shoe is going to drop here. You can win, just like you won all those other competitions.”

“But—”

“You’re not going to screw up. Trust me. You can win.” _You_ will _win._

The next day, Katie watches from the stands as Tessa and Scott win the gold medal at Worlds. Waving her tiny Canadian flag around and cheering at the top of her lungs, Katie soaks in every little detail of this moment – the last moment of guaranteed happiness before she plays Russian Roulette with all three of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you have an amazing weekend!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Thank you for coming back to read the sixth chapter of this story.
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much to the lovely people that left a comment on the previous chapter. Reading them truly made my day!

It dawns on Katie, a little more than two hours before the Helsinki Gas Attack is due to take place, that the dress she has chosen for this momentous evening is incredibly impractical.

To be fair, it _is_ beautiful, the dress that is sprawled out on top of her bed, awaiting to shroud her body. Shorter dresses did always suit her better, and the plunging neckline does, surprisingly, work in her favor. However, among the many uncertainties of tonight is whether she will be able to change into a more appropriate attire before her second schedule of the evening. She isn’t sure how much support the built-in-bra will provide when she is sprinting across the grass and tackling a grown man. At least it’s inconspicuous, Katie thinks: it’s black.

Katie changes into her dress and sits down in front of the mirror. With the costume change, the only parts of her outward appearance that are left from the gala are her hair and lips. She inspects her half up half down hair in the mirror. It’s still fairly neat; she could keep it like this for the banquet. But not long after that thought flashes across her mind, she reaches behind to undo her braid and instead ties it into a low bun.

It’s startling, what a difference a change in hairstyle can make. The doubt and fear lingering in her eyes waver, the resolution and confidence that carried her through NASA’s arduous training process shining through from beneath. For fear that the illusion will shatter if she so much as blinks, Katie keeps her eyes glued on her own reflection as she wipes away the remaining traces of the nude lipstick. A much darker, much bolder color takes its place. 

And just like that, Kaetlyn Osmond is gone.

*

As she suspected, the closing banquet is held on the first floor of the hotel. Fortunately, there is a considerable distance between the hall and the entrance of the hotel. The emergency exit is also located nearby. Katie lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. If all she’s able to do is give them an early warning – buy them some time – at least they’ll be able to escape up onto the roof and wait to be rescued.

Once she arrives at the banquet, Katie mingles with her fellow skaters in a very strategic manner. She starts by hurrying over to Gabi and Guillaume and congratulating them on their silver medal. Madi and Zach join in on the conversation soon after. They talk about how crazy it is that next season is Olympic season, and summer plans are discussed. One post-season activity is scheduled for the next day: grabbing donuts at the airport together; their flights all leave around the same time. Katie drops in some hints here and there that she’s bone-tired and mentions that she’ll probably go to bed early tonight. 

The Canadians are Katie’s next target. Her plan was to talk to just a few of them – make it known that she is present and that she’s only planning to stick around for the first half of the night – but that plan ends when her conversation with Eric is interrupted by their names being hollered across the hall.

“Kaetlyn! Eric! Get over here! We’re taking pictures!” Kaitlyn says, her hands waving excitedly. “Where’s your partner? And where the hell are Tessa and Scott?”

Tessa and Scott, Katie swears, were here just a couple of minutes ago, talking to the Shibutanis. But now, they are nowhere to be found. They don’t show up during the Team Canada photo session that lasts an eternity; they don’t show up when the medalists are asked to come up onto the stage to receive their gift bag; and they certainly don’t show up to join the disco party that breaks out in the middle of the room.

Shaking her head at Madi and Zach’s rather insistent gestures for her to join them on the dance floor, Katie glances down at her watch. _Forty-five minutes left._ She bites the inside of her lower lip nervously. For all the planning she did, she did not consider the possibility of her room being occupied during the banquet. She supposes it won’t be difficult to sneak the antidote out of the room. The gas mask, however, would be.

“You don’t like to dance?”

Katie startles at the voice. Standing next to her is a male skater whose name she has misplaced somewhere in her muddled brain.

“I do, actually. Like to dance. I’m just tired to night. What about you?”

“Me too. I am trying to find a good excuse to leave. My partner wants me to stay some more, but I am too tired.” He smiles wearily. “It was a long season.”

So he was an ice dancer then. Or a pairs skater, perhaps. Katie glances down at her watch. _Forty minutes left._ Weighing her options, she scans the room. Most people who would express concern over her early departure are dancing their hearts out. The rest are standing on the side, observing the dance scene, relaxed and amused. If she were to leave now, no one would notice.

As her gaze passes through the dance floor once more, Katie’s eyes meet Zach’s. He looks directly at Katie, then at the mystery skater that is keeping her company, then back at her again. He smirks.

Katie rolls her eyes. Of course that’s where his mind would go. How… convenient.

She leans in towards the mystery skater. “I’m going to sneak off while they’re preoccupied,” she says in a low voice, nodding towards the crowd. “Want to join? I’m sure your partner won’t mind.”

He looks around, probably to look for his partner. “Yes, she seems a little bit busy,” he says. “Ok, then. Let’s go.”

Katie gestures for him to lead the way, then looks over her shoulder at Zach. He winks, his body still swaying in time with the music. In return, she smiles sweetly, trusting that by midnight, anyone who asks about her whereabouts will think she’s burning off some post-season adrenaline in some random skater’s hotel room.

*

In the end, her stopover in her room winds up being very anticlimactic. When she creaks the door open, a pair of black heels greet her but so does the sound of the tap running, its sound muffled somewhat by the bathroom door, which is shut close. Katie calls Tessa’s name experimentally. There is no response.

Upon gathering her supplies for the evening as quickly as she can, Katie opts to take the emergency staircase down to the first floor, the pitter-patter of her footsteps echoing throughout the entire building. The odd combination of semi-formal dress, tennis shoes, and cinch sack draws some unwanted attention, both at the hotel and on the streets of Helsinki. But the more distance she places between herself and the hotel, the less people there are. Soon, she’s the only living creature out and about in the near vicinity.

Katie frowns. Slowing down, she looks around. She is less than five minutes away from the Parliament House, yet she hasn’t seen a single person for the past ten minutes or so. Odd, considering a gathering supposedly took place in the park across the street tonight.

Katie checks the time, then squints in the direction of the park. Sure enough, she spots a large red tent that has been set up and sees some plastic chairs stacked off to the side. There are no cars nearby, though, and there don’t appear to be any people. The event, for whatever reason, must have been re-scheduled. 

Her heart hammering in her throat, Katie walks a little faster towards her final destination. It was widely accepted by historians that the perpetrator of the Helsinki Gas Attack chose tonight of all nights because he was aware there would be a large crowd nearby. Could it be the ripples she created over the past year were enough to prevent a mass murder?

A droplet of water skims past her nose, so lightly that Katie thinks she must have imagined it. Soon after, one plops on her head, then another two crash onto both her shoulders, then several more pepper the palm of her hand.

Katie tilts her head up towards the sky. As if on cue, rain pours down, so heavily and so suddenly that Katie actually finds it a bit humorous. She thought these things only happened in cartoons. Water gurgles down the asphalt and instant puddles form around her feet. When she lifts one up experimentally, she groans at all the mud that comes along with her once clean sneakers. She checks the time again. 

_Nineteen minutes left._

Her feet sloshing against the muddy ground, Katie shields her face using her hands and tries to see through the rain. A large tank pulls up in front of the Parliament House, its headlights switched off. The door swings open and a man exits. He stalks over to the back of the tank and just stands there in the rain without an umbrella or a raincoat.

“Hey!” Katie yells. “Are you ok?”

The man’s head snaps to face her, and for a moment, there is an intense stare down between the two of them as both contemplate their next move. Then, the man grabs the handle and turns it.

*

Edward Lorenz passed away in 2008, but if he had still been alive in the 2030’s, Katie thinks he would have burst into NASA Headquarters and screamed at the top of his lungs. Not scream anything in particular, mind you, but just let out his frustration in one, long scream. Because it’s one thing for Hollywood to not only misinterpret his lecture but also spin it into a catch phrase. It’s a whole other thing for a building full of Ivy-League-PhD’d scientists to toss said phrase around to illustrate a point.

The phrase in question, of course, is the “butterfly effect,” a term stemmed from a question Lorenz posed to his audience during the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”

When it made the leap from laboratory to popular culture, the butterfly effect became a metaphor for the existence of seemingly insignificant moments that alter history and shape destinies by creating chains of cause and effect that appear obvious in retrospect. This interpretation of Lorenz’s insight is what led to Robert Redford telling Lena Olin, “A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean. They can even calculate the odds” in the 1990 film _Havana_. It’s a beautiful thought, this idea that a small thing can have a big impact. It’s even more wonderful to imagine we can look back on our history and trace a global level event down to a single butterfly in China – that we can treat historical events like levers that can be manipulated to a desired end. 

Except this isn’t what Lorenz meant at all. The purpose of his provocative question was not to say that we can track such connections, but to say that we can’t. After all, if a tornado could have been caused by something as slight as a flap of a butterfly’s wings, how can we definitively say what caused any storm at all? Global warming may have made hurricanes more likely, but can we say with certainty that it was what caused Hurricane Maria?

Lorenz’s point, to Katie’s understanding at least, was that not everything happens for a reason, and even when they do, it’s difficult to track those reasons down. Sometimes, it all boils down to probability and randomness in the end – not cause and effect. It’s a time traveler’s nightmare, truly.

*

“You were very lucky that we happened to be passing by,” the police officer tells Katie. He soaks a cotton ball with some antiseptic. Her knee jerks involuntarily when he dabs it on her wound.

Katie nods. The evening played out so very differently than she thought it would, but she can’t deny that she was incredibly fortunate. She was lucky that the police were on patrol and spotted the suspicious looking vehicle. She was lucky that they had witnessed enough of the situation to know she wasn’t an accomplice. She was lucky that it was pouring and that the handle was slippery as a result. And, now that she thinks about it, she was lucky that the skater approached her when he did – she probably would’ve been too late to stop the attack otherwise.

“And we were very lucky that you happened to be there, at the right place at the right time,” the officer says. “I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened had you not been there to stop him. The gas inside the tank, it’s toxic, apparently. Could have killed a whole lot of people. There was supposed to be a festival tonight.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“It was cancelled because of the weather forecast. They said there was a chance it would rain tonight. Around 20%, I think? I thought it was silly to cancel the festival – it rarely rains in the spring and it was only 20% – but I guess… everything happens for a reason, right?”

“Absolutely.”

*

Katie asks the officer to drop her off a three-minute walk away from the hotel, because the last thing she needs is to draw attention to herself by letting herself be seen coming out of a police car. She realizes she need not have worried about that, though – the wide-eyed look both the doorman and the concierge give her tell her that her mess of an appearance would’ve been more than enough to attract stares. The police car, she suspects, would’ve been forgotten about fairly quickly.

“Uh…” the concierge says. “The party is over.”

Katie looks in the direction of the hall, now bustling with hotel staff cleaning up the aftermath of the wild evening, then laughs. “Yes, I can see that.”

She doesn’t know how she manages to walk all the way up to the sixth floor, but she does for fear that she’ll run into someone she knows. Her bag weighing her down, she reaches the end of the corridor and slots her card into the card reader.

She’d disconnected the lamp before she left, so she expects the room to be completely dark, save for the one light at the entrance that is motion sensitive. However, as she is toeing her shoes off, Katie notices a stream of light coming from the vanity. It’s Tessa’s phone, Katie realizes, flipped screen down with the flashlight turned on. 

For some reason, it’s this simple gesture that reduces Katie to tears. Her surroundings turn into a blur, clouded by hot tears, and the sounds of her harsh breathing fill the room. She stands there, so still that the light above her flickers off, one shoe still on her foot. Two stray tears trickle down her cheeks, and just like that, the floodgates open. After kicking her remaining shoe off and tossing her bag haphazardly onto the ground, she runs into the bathroom, locks the door, and turns both the shower and the faucet on. Tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down her face, and her chin trembles as she tries to suppress the sobs that threaten to tear through her throat. 

She doesn’t know how long she spends curled up on the ground, crying until she is gasping for air, her throat burning from all the words she wishes she could say. But eventually, once she is certain she has no more tears to shed, she crawls over to where the box of tissues is located. She makes the mistake of wiping her eyes with them.

_So much for waterproof_ , she thinks. 

Ignoring the black smear, she blows her nose instead, then throws it into the trash. It bounces off the rim of the trashcan. Katie sighs, picking the crumbled ball up. It’s when she is about to drop it into the bin that she notices a blue piece of plastic sticking out from beneath a mound of toilet paper. Every cell in her body is screaming at her to ignore it, but before she can stop herself, she’s pulling the digital pregnancy test – and the two other that were hidden underneath – out of the bin. 

All three say the same thing. A puff of bitter laughter escapes her lips. 

This, she supposes, is the beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please feel free to leave any comments down below. I hope you have a wonderful and safe weekend!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: There are mentions of abortion in this chapter.**
> 
> Huge, huge thank you to everyone that commented on the previous chapter! I really appreciate that you took the time to leave them. They never fail to make my day.

That night, Katie doesn’t sleep a wink. After staring up at the ceiling for hours, she slips out of the bed the instant the sun rises. She re-arranges her belongings more times than she cares to count, stopping only when Kaitlyn comes knocking on the door, asking if they’ll be coming down for breakfast. Tessa shakes her head from beneath the covers when Katie asks. Katie, on the other hand, opts to go, dragging her luggage down with her to save herself a trip up to the room and, more importantly, an interaction with Tessa.

The admission makes Katie wince. She’d vowed – as she re-hid the pregnancy tests in the bin, as she splashed ice cold water on her face, as she glanced over at Tessa’s sleeping form – that she would be impartial and supportive, just as she would were Tessa any other friend of hers. There would be no asking carefully worded questions or sudden confessions that would pressure Tessa into confiding in her. And, on a similar note, there would be no harboring of resentment or any other negative feelings towards Tessa, no matter what decision she makes. Impartial and supportive; that’s what Katie was going to be.

And yet here she was, actively avoiding Tessa by scuttling down to the breakfast bar with her belongings a good two hours before their bus is set to leave for the airport. For what reason, she doesn’t know. She’s no Tessa expert by any means, but Tessa doesn’t seem like the type of person that would seek advice from her 21-year-old roommate, especially about something as monumental and potentially judgment inducing as this.

Oblivious to Katie’s inner turmoil, Kaitlyn chatters on and on about Stars on Ice, stopping only to slip a piece of fruit in her mouth. 

“This is the first time in _years_ Andrew and I won’t be on the tour,” she says. “We really want to do it, but we’ve got the World Team Trophy at the end of April then there’s that Olympic Lab thing at the beginning of June, so…” She chops her cubed watermelon in half with her fork. “What about you? Have you decided?”

“No, not yet,” Katie says. 

She’d received the e-mail asking if she would like to join the tour right after Nationals. Her answer at the time had been that she wasn’t sure. She wanted to wait till the ends of Worlds – see if she had enough energy left to launch right in to a nation-wide tour so soon after the season. Her e-mail read like a string of pretty lame excuses to Katie, but it must not have to the organizers of the tour. They said they were more than happy to wait. She supposes she’ll have to give her answer within the next few days.

Katie winds up being the first one to board the bus. Gabi and Guillaume arrive not long afterwards and sit across the aisle from her, discussing potential songs for next season. Some concerns regarding their continued losses to Tessa and Scott are mentioned, which Katie does feel bad for overhearing – they aren’t exactly whispering, but she’s never really mentioned that she can understand French either. As she cranks up the volume of the music, Katie wonders what conversations are held in the privacy of Marie and Patch’s offices, how many indirect ways everyone involved has uttered the words ‘How can we beat them?’

Their conversation comes to a halt when Scott makes his appearance, Tessa following closely behind him. He claps Guillaume on the shoulder and congratulates the pair on their season before tossing his bag on the overhead compartment. He plops down behind Katie, ruffling her hair lightly for good measure. Then, he leans against the window and closes his eyes. Tessa, on the other hand, has disappeared, having slipped into one of the seats in the front row. 

Katie hears Zach before she sees him, his boisterous laugh mingled with Madi’s announcing his presence. The bus has gone quiet now, all five skaters staring out the window, each with a different issue weighing on their minds. To his credit, Zach holds off on commenting on the rather glum atmosphere until he has reached his chosen row. 

“What’s going on, guys? Why the long face?” He kneels on his seat, conveniently the one right in front of Katie’s, and rests his chin on the head rest. “It’s the end of the season, you all won medals, and we’re finally going home. We should be celebrating.”

“We did,” Guillaume points out, rolling his eyes. “Last night. How do you have so much energy? It’s only nine in the morning.”

“Some of us left the party early. Isn’t that right, Kaet?”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, Zach.”

“Who was the guy?” Madi slithers over to take her seat next to Zach. “I couldn’t really make out his face in the dark. Was he a singles skater? Is he someone we’re close to?”

“I don’t know.” At Madi and Zach’s groans of protest, Katie simply slurps down her coffee. “I honestly don’t remember who he was,” she then adds. “I must’ve been more drunk than I thought I was.”

“All you had was one glass of champagne!” Zach says.

“Well, it must’ve been a _really_ strong one. I couldn’t even tell you what color his eyes were.”

“No one would know what eye color their one-night stand had!”

“Why are we talking about one-night stands?” Marie inquires, and that puts an end to that conversation.

*

“Who do I need to hunt down?” Tessa asks.

“Huh?” Katie sets her bag down next to the couch, taking care not to drop the ice cream she’s brought. She hands the tub off to Tessa. “I would’ve brought wine, but I don’t know the first thing about them.”

Tessa drops her gaze down to the ice cream. “This is perfect, actually,” she says, her voice wavering ever so slightly. She clears her throat. “Thank you.” 

She disappears into the kitchen, an incredibly bare thing that seems to have just enough appliances for Tessa to not starve to death: a fridge, a microwave, and a coffee machine. Meanwhile, Katie scans the apartment. It’s cozy, yet has a show house feel to it, every cushion, every book, every petal seemingly in its designated spot. It’s so very different from the house Katie grew up in. Aunt Jordan wasn’t the biggest fan of white.

“I meant your knees,” Tessa says, sitting down on the couch. She pats the seat next to her. “What happened?” 

Katie looks down. Surrounding a large band-aid are speckles of purple-ish blue that she hadn’t noticed until now. She inspects them by pivoting on the balls of her feet. She must’ve acquired them at some point during her tussle with the perpetrator of the gas attack.

“The ice,” she says. “Or the ground. Or the table. Or the bed frame. Who knows?” She rearranges the cushion before sitting down. She gathers her hair into a ponytail for lack of a better thing to do, then asks the dreaded question. “So, what’s going on?”

Tessa straightens up (metaphorically, of course – she couldn’t possibly sit up more properly than she already is), folds her hands onto her lap, and takes a deep breath, all while looking at Katie with utmost seriousness, like Katie is a member of the Canadian press and not her friend. Then, with zero warning whatsoever, Tessa bursts into tears.

In the end, all she manages to tell Katie is that she took three pregnancy tests that all came out positive and that no one else knows, including Scott. There are so many questions Katie is tempted to ask, the greatest of which being, _What are you going to do?_ But she doesn’t, retrieving the ice cream and putting a silver spoon in Tessa’s hand instead. She tells herself it’s because Tessa looks like she’s about to faint, but really, it’s because Katie doesn’t think she could bear to hear the answer.

*

“You know how I said I couldn’t tell Scott after Worlds because he looked so happy?” Tessa whispers later that evening.

Katie’s eyes dart up from her phone. Meagan has been trying to convince Katie to say yes to the Stars on Ice tour for thirty minutes now. At this point, Katie is just waiting to see how long it’ll take Meagan to mention the financial benefits of joining.

“Actually,” Tessa continues, her voice so low Katie has to shuffle over to hear her properly, “I didn’t tell him because I know that he’ll want me to keep it.”

Katie’s throat tightens. “You don’t think he’ll respect your decision?”

Tessa shakes her head. “I know he will. I know he’ll support me no matter what choice I make. But I think… I think there will be a part of him that wants me to keep it. Even if that means we miss the Olympics. And I’m afraid…” Tears start to form in her eyes again.

“It doesn’t matter, Tess. It’s your decision, in the end. And Scott won’t hold anything against you, no matter what you choose to do.”

“I know, I just—”

“What do _you_ want?” Katie asks. She holds her breath as she waits for the answer. 

Tessa hesitates, and Katie wonders if she somehow knows that the person waiting for her answer shares the same exact genetic code as the cluster of cells implanted in her uterus. 

“The Olympics are in less than a year, Kaet.”

The numbness Katie feels inside comes close to how she felt when Aunt Jordan died. She tries to snap herself out of it to nod or give Tessa a hug or say something to show her support. She’s not very successful, but fortunately, her phone rings furiously in her hand, saving her from the situation. Mumbling an apology, Katie answers, walking towards the kitchen. It’s Meagan and Eric, chanting the words ‘Stars on Ice’ over and over again.

Staring at the marble counter, Katie considers it, the possibility of building up a new life from scratch here, as Kaetlyn Osmond, the Canadian figure skater. It would certainly be easier than driving into some random year in the past or future with no identity and no connections whatsoever. But could she really stand by and watch Tessa and Scott get married? Have children? Watch them live the life she could only ever dream of having? She doesn’t know. All she knows is that she needs to get out of Montreal for the time being. 

So when Meagan pleads, “Come on, Kaetlyn. Join us! It’s going to be so much fun!” Katie lets out a strangled laugh and says, “Alright, alright. Count me in.”

*

Right before she leaves for the Stars on Ice tour, Katie dyes her hair a few shades lighter. She does it on a whim and can only shrug when people ask her about it. But she knows it was the right thing to do; it results in the unintentionally cruel “Hey, has anyone ever told you that you kind of look like Scott?” comments being cut down by half.

“So?” Jeffrey Buttle claps her on the back after the final show in Vancouver. “What did you think? Would you do it again?”

Without missing a beat, Katie nods. “Absolutely. I loved it.”

“Good. Because Scott and Tessa keep texting me to ask how you’re doing. Kind of made me wonder if you were telling them you hated being here behind our backs.” At the horrified look on her face, he grins. “I’m kidding. I know you had fun. They’re just worried about you. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t just join the tour. Would’ve been a lot more fun. You should see how Scott gets during karaoke nights. It’s hilarious. Tessa, too, but for completely different reasons.”

Tessa and Scott’s absence are tied in directly with why Katie enjoyed the tour so much. She can’t say that out loud, though, so she simply agrees with Jeff.

*

Tessa never texted or called Katie to tell her that she’d gone through with the abortion, and Katie never reached out to ask either. But when she visits Gadbois once she returns from tour, she overhears Marie talking to Patch about Tessa and Scott’s Olympic programs, so she assumes it’s done.

She’s fine with it, she swears. After all, she’s known this was a possibility from the very beginning and chose her actions accordingly. Besides, there was always the possibility that she was never conceived to begin with. Her coming to the past had somehow changed the weather, hadn’t it? The aborted… embryo could’ve very well been a sibling of hers. Any time she does feel any sort of anger or sadness creep up from deep within her, she simply pushes those feelings aside. She can’t afford to act emotionally. She has a new life to build. 

Weeks go by with Katie not feeling anything other than excited for the upcoming season. She even runs into Tessa and Scott at the Olympic Lab and is pleasantly surprised to find that her feelings towards them haven’t changed much at all. They seem happy and healthy and just as excited to dive into Olympic season, and that’s all Katie has ever wanted for them. Truly.

So, Katie isn’t sure how or why her emotions take such a drastic turn from there, but three days after she returns to Montreal, she’s screaming at Jonathan, spitting rapid fire expletives into the phone. Maybe she’s still raw from her own death; maybe those of her loved ones have resurfaced to haunt her; or maybe it’s the fever speaking. She doesn’t know. All she knows is that the anger she’s kept bottling up inside for years is bubbling over and spilling out of her heart faster than she can hope to scoop back in. 

“Don’t pretend to be stupid, Jonathan,” she seethes. 

Jonathan sighs, annoyed, his patience wearing thin. “I’m not pretending.” A drawer slams close. “I really don’t understand why you’re so upset. You’re sick, and I’m in Sweden. What’s wrong with asking Scott to check up on you? Make sure you haven’t collapsed in the bathroom or something?”

“I wanted to avoid dragging him into this mess at all costs, yet you did exactly that!” Her voice climbs up several octaves, and her fingers dig into the blanket. “Do you know how close he came to opening the drawer? To seeing all the photos of him and—”

“They’re in _albums_ , Katie. I highly doubt—”

“--if I wanted them to know, I would’ve told them before Tessa got an abortion!” 

That stuns Jonathan into silence. Temporarily, at least. “What do you mean?”

“That means, _Jonathan_ , that I don’t exist. Not here, not in the future, not ever. I’ll forever be floating around like some useless, forgotten, abandoned piece of space trash.”

A pillow flies across the room. It hits the television. It wobbles slightly but is otherwise unaffected by Katie’s burst of frustration. Somehow, that sucks all the energy out of her. She flops onto her stomach and buries her face in the mattress, her head pounding. She feels like she’s six again, her only coping mechanism yelling and spitting out spiteful words. It’s ridiculous. She has talked to psychologist after psychologist for a good chunk of her life. She’s supposed to have decent control over her emotions by now.

It takes an eternity for either of them to speak, but when they do, the words are simple and heartfelt. “I’m sorry,” they say at the same time.

“I shouldn’t have lashed out at you like that,” Katie adds. “This isn’t… I’m the one who got myself into this mess.”

“No, you had a good point. I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss it.” He pauses. “Do you think you’ll ever tell them?”

“No.”

“Even if they break up?”

Katie rolls onto her back. She hadn’t considered that possibility before.

“ _Especially_ if they break up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated. I hope you're having a lovely and safe weekend!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Again, there are mentions of abortion in this chapter.
> 
> Huge thank you to everyone that read/left kudos/commented on the previous chapter. It truly means a lot to me that there are people reading this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

There’s a shift in Katie and Jonathan’s relationship after their summer evening screaming match. 

He starts sending her funny science memes he finds online and the view from his window in the mornings. She reciprocates with photos of desserts she’s dying to try and videos of her epic figure skating fails. He grumbles about the dishes his roommate broke. She asks for his opinion on costumes. And at his dawns and her nights, when both Montreal and Solna are in deep sleep, they talk and talk till their throats are raw. 

They are a lot more common than she’d thought, it turns out. He, too, grew up feeling isolated from his home country, having been tossed around between Senegal, France, and Sweden since he was a toddler. His parents didn’t raise him. Not really. They got divorced when he was two and were both ambitious entrepreneurs that entrusted him in the care of a nanny or one of his older sisters. It’s funny, he tells her one night. Everyone thought he had a near perfect upbringing, that Geneviève Schlumberger’s passion for helping single mothers and orphaned children translated into her being the most doting mother to grace this planet. In reality, she let her children roam free. She didn’t care what they were doing so long as they were alive and downstairs for breakfast the next morning. Maybe that was her way of showing love, he reasons. Her own parents were incredibly strict. She hated it.

Jonathan speaks of his mother both with resentment and adoration. Katie relates to this too, though she would never admit it. As loving as her dad was when he was around, Katie never quite got over the fact that he left her with her aunt when she was just a year old. Her aunt always explained that her dad was ill – that he sent her away because he wanted a better life for her – but he was well enough to be a coach, was he not? Why couldn’t he be there for her if he could be there for his students? 

The third similarity is wholly unexpected and comes with an equally unexpected phone call from Jonathan around five in the afternoon. 

“Guess who’s an uncle now?” 

Katie gasps, nearly missing a step and toppling down the staircase. Jonathan mentioned that his sister was expecting a little girl in September. The kid must’ve decided to come a bit earlier. “Pauline had her baby?” 

“She did. Allie. Short for Pascale, like the triangle.”

Katie snorts. “I don’t think that’s the association they were going for.” 

She sandwiches her phone between her ear and shoulder as she tosses her bag into the back seat of her car. Meanwhile, he describes how gnome-like Allie was when she was born, from the wrinkles on her forehead down to the body proportions. She’s as cute as a button, though, he adds. And he definitely did not cry when she wrapped her tiny hand around his finger.

“Also, there is no better sibling bonding activity than childbirth,” Jonathan says. “I don’t think my hand will ever recover. Or my ears. Totally worth it, though. I can’t believe…”

“Can’t believe what?”

Jonathan hesitates, then tells her about that one morning Pauline requested a meeting at a local coffee shop. She’s the youngest of his sisters, but she’s still six years older than he is and always seemed so grown up. She was the one that read him bedtime stories, the one he ran to whenever he was upset, the one that helped him navigate the ups and downs of his teenage years. He’s never seen her cry or frightened. Ever. Until that morning, that is.

“She wanted me to go to the clinic with her,” he says. “It was almost exactly two years ago. She needed someone to drive her home because she was going to be put under and both Nathalie and Camille were away and I guess… I don’t know. I guess she didn’t want to tell her friends. Anyways, she made it sound like it was no big deal and she seemed fine on the drive home so I thought she was ok. But when I tucked her into bed, she started crying. Sobbing. And Pauline never cries. It was…” He sighs. The whistle of his kettle fills the silence.

Jonathan perks up fairly quickly, sending photo after photo upon hanging up. Katie, on the other hand, sits in her car, staring blankly out the window at Tessa’s empty parking space.  
The thing is, it had slipped her mind that every woman’s experience with abortion is different. She remembers the relief she’d felt after hers, back when she was nineteen. She’d lost her aunt just a few months prior and was off the ice with a broken leg at the time, and to top it all off, the world was literally on fire, B.C. looking more and more like _Blade Runner 2049_ ’s Las Vegas as the days passed by. So, it was an easy decision, in the end. There was no guilt, no regret, no sadness.

It didn’t hit her until now that she’d just assumed Tessa felt the same way – that she never really bothered to ask, because she was too busy wallowing in self-pity. And that realization eats at her the rest of that evening.

*

When Katie finally musters up the courage to talk to Tessa in private, Tessa looks a bit taken aback by the apology. She says there’s no need for Katie to apologize, that just knowing she had Katie’s support meant the world to her. The procedure itself went fine – Scott was there the entire time.

She says it felt like a huge weight was lifted off her chest, that it was nice, being able to eat without feeling nauseous for the first time in weeks, so well… that’s that, Katie supposes.

*

Back when she competed in the 2034 Olympics, there was no Team Event. To Katie’s knowledge, it was scheduled to be a part of the 2018 Olympics and was part of the 2022 Olympics, but by the time 2034 rolled around, the Olympic Committee had decided that it was pointless, having a team event when only the United States, Russia, and Canada could participate.

And so, Katie didn’t know how seriously Skate Canada took the event. She honestly thought they would wait till Nationals, then simply have the top skaters in each discipline compete in both the team and individual events. It takes one run through of her short program on the second day of the High Performance Camp for Katie to realize that Skate Canada really wants the gold this time round.

“They think I should go back to my old program,” Katie says. She’s got very little complaints about the new arrangement. She adores her Edith Piaf program, and it’ll be nice, focusing on just one new routine – she’ll have more time to plan out her secret excursion to Russia. She drenches her voice in disappointment, though, because that’s probably how any other skater would feel about the situation. “I guess my new costume will never see the light of day.”

“You could always use it next season,” Scott says. He’s sitting across from her, his fork poking at his vegetables. His head is hanging but his eyes are staring up at her. It’s unsettling, how serious he looks. He almost looks like he’s interrogating her. “Or a show. Unless you’ve got other plans?”

“I suppose,” Katie says slowly. “I haven’t thought much about what I’ll do after the Olympics, but if I end up retiring, I suppose I could donate it.”

“You’re thinking of retiring? Why? Your career’s just begun.”

Katie fiddles with her necklace, trying to gauge the intention behind his questions. Come to think of it, he’s been asking her a lot of questions lately: about her childhood, her family, her friends. They weren’t difficult to answer – mostly things along the lines of ‘Brothers can be such a pain sometimes. Do you have any siblings, Kaet?’ – and she’d attributed them to his on-going quest to beef up her Wikipedia page, but what if…

Katie quickly shakes that thought out of her mind. There was that one close call at her hotel room, but other than that… no. There’s no way he knows. There’s no way he even suspects that she’s biologically his daughter.

“I’m 21, Scott. That’s 60 in figure skating years. Besides, I am not putting myself through four more years of no dessert.” She shakes her head. “No way.”

He hums, mentions that Carolina Kostner is his age, then eats the rest of his meal in relative silence. Katie breaths a sigh of relief. Clearly, she overreacted.

But then in the weeks following the High Performance Camp, Scott’s interest in Katie’s past continues, making her sick with apprehension. 

On the first day back at Gadbois, he asks how long she’s been skating for, to which she truthfully replies that she started skating when she was two at a rink near her grandparent’s house.

Then, after the Autumn Classic, he jokingly mentions that it’s unfair that she already has a Soohorang plush. Katie laughs nervously, her gaze fixed on the road ahead. He must’ve seen it that one time he came over to her room; in her feverish state, she hadn’t thought to snatch it up from her bed and chuck it in the closet. 

“You jealous, Scott?” Katie smirks. “I thought you hated mascots.”

“I do. It’s just odd that you’ve got one, a year before the Olympics. When did you get it?”

“I have no clue,” she says, then ‘accidentally’ pokes Tessa in the leg, startling her awake.

However, it’s a few days after she returns from Internationaux de France that Katie really starts to panic.

“Scott reading doesn’t seem like something you should be freaking out about, Katie,” Jonathan says.

“Even when the title of the book is _The Time Machine_?”

Jonathan looks up from his laptop. “H.G. Wells?” When Katie nods, he goes back to typing. “Maybe he just enjoys reading science fiction.”

Her pen tapping against her notebook, Katie shakes her head. She’s supposed to be looking for flights from Tokyo to Koltsovo – her bronze at her second grand prix event had qualified her for the Grand Prix Final in Japan – but the way Scott had casually pulled it out of his bag for her to see has her distracted. 

“I don’t think that’s it,” she says. “He asked me if I think it will be possible one day.”

“Time travel?”

“Yes!” She slams her notebook shut. “Do you think he knows?”

“I doubt it. The only lead he has is your white tiger doll thing, and that’s not enough for him to jump to the wild conclusion that you’re from the 2030’s.”

“Yeah,” Katie says. “Yeah, you’re right. He’d be nuts to think that.”

*

Standing on the podium at the Grand Prix Finals feels amazing, even though she’s on the lowest step. It’s just enough for her to momentarily forget that she was supposed to be born just a few days ago.

As she is getting ready for the banquet, her mind wanders to the plane ticket that’s sitting at the bottom of her suitcase. It’s hard to believe she’s so close – that the moment the past two years has been building up to is just around the corner. She has the map of the Vector Institute memorized, has come up with backup plans A through Z, but as the minutes tick by, she is increasingly plagued by self-doubt. 

She doesn’t know what she’ll do if she fails, if all of this has been for nothing. 

She locks that thought up in a box and shoves it to the very back of her mind as she approaches the banquet hall. She doesn’t think she can get through all the congratulations and belated birthday wishes if she doesn’t.

“Congratulations!” Madi says, throwing her arms around Katie’s neck. “First in the short, third overall… your 22nd birthday is shaping up to be pretty fantastic, huh?”

Oh, if only she knew.

Katie laughs and thanks Madi, then does the same with every other skater that comes up to talk to her. As the night draws on and more alcohol is coursing through her system, though, Katie finds it harder and harder to force a smile on her face. She thought this birthday wouldn’t feel any different than last year’s, when she’d found it hilarious that she, a person that doesn’t exist yet, is celebrating a birthday. But as it turns out, there is a huge difference between being a person that doesn’t exist yet and being a person that doesn’t exist period.

By midnight, Katie is comfortably buzzed: not so drunk that she can’t walk but drunk enough that when one of the guys scans her up and down, she wonders if having a drunken one-night stand might make this dreadful evening better. 

It’s that sudden, uncharacteristic thought that has her saying her good nights and wandering back to her room. She gives up on her heels by the time she reaches the elevators and tosses them off, opting to having them swinging from her hands instead as she plods down the hallway. 

She saw Tessa leave the banquet early, so isn’t at all surprised that the lights are on. When she bends down to drop her heels on the ground, she spots a pair of black dress shoes. That doesn’t surprise her either. What does alarm Katie, however, is the sound of muffled sobs coming from the bedroom. She knew Tessa and Scott were disappointed that they came in second – hell Marie and Patch seemed disappointed, though without a doubt incredibly proud of Gabi and Guillaume – but she didn’t think… surely Tessa isn’t crying because of a medal.

“It’ll be worth it in the end, Tess. I promise,” Katie hears Scott say. Tessa says something in return that Katie doesn’t quite catch, then Scott says, “Coming in second here doesn’t mean anything. You know that.”

Katie snorts. She can’t believe this. She can’t fucking believe this. Tessa – her _mother_ , in some other timeline that no longer exists because Katie put _their_ lives above her own – has been visibly upset throughout the entire banquet and is now crying over a fucking medal, when she wasn’t even a tiny bit upset when she… 

Katie’s throat tightens and hot tears prick her eyes. Did Tessa even know her daughter would’ve been born this week? Did she even care? 

Had Katie, herself, cared? She hadn’t. Other than the occasional ‘What if…,’ she never thought about her abortion. So what gave her the right to be angry at Tessa? 

Her anger deflates as quickly as it arose. Not bothering to put on her shoes, Katie leaves, not caring that the door slams shut behind her.

*

“Wait! Kaetlyn, wait. Hold on.”

A hand grabs Katie’s wrist. Irritated, Katie whips around.

“What, Scott?”

Scott lets go of Katie, shock evident in his eyes at her tone of voice. He looks up and down the hallway. “Can we, uh… can we talk?”

“About _what_?” she spits out. “Aren’t you supposed to be comforting your girlfriend right now?”

“I…” His eyebrows furrow. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I just thought you’d like to get back to Tessa. She seemed devastated about the silver.”

“That’s not—” Scott’s jaws clench. “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s… she’s your--”

“I know she’s my friend. All I meant was—"

“No!” Scott runs his hand through his hair, occasionally yanking at large fistfuls. “No, that’s not…” He starts pacing in a small circle. “Ever since I went over to your place and saw… it’s… it’s been driving me nuts. And I’ve tried to ask you about it but I couldn’t because you kept avoiding me and I get that but… I can’t afford to let what happened today happen again at the Olympics, so please—”

“Oh, so the silver’s _my_ fault now?”

“That’s not what I said!” Even he gets wide-eyed at just how loud his voice is. He stops pacing and takes a deep breath. He tucks his hands into his pocket. “I saw, Kaet.”

Those three words suck all the alcohol out of Katie’s system. “Saw what?”

“The photos. The ones you keep in the drawers. The ones with me and Tessa and…” He gulps. “I saw them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are very much appreciated. 
> 
> If you have any questions about the story, please feel free to leave them in the comments section or shoot me a message at @philosophronia on tumblr.


End file.
